Thursday, October 20, 2005

Oh the joy!
The Frontier Librarians have a grand-daughter. Madeleine Pearl Wallace was born on 17th October at 7.50 pm in St Vincent’s Private Hospital. She is the most beautiful, intelligent and finest human being the world has ever known.
Thank-you Grumpy Girl and Matt.

Monday, October 03, 2005

People have been chiding me for my prolonged non-blogging. No excuses really except that Winter saps my strength to such an extent that I usually lose the will to live between June and October and who would want to read about that?

Feeling has returned to my fingertips so now I can record the excitement of contemplating the arrival of Our First Grandaughter who is expected to put in an appearance in about three weeks.

Grumpy Girl is blooming: she looks healthy, relaxed and ready for anything which is just as well of course.

The only worry Right Foot and I have at all is the baby’s name. Grumpy is steadfastly non-committal and I fear the worst. One of those stern First World War names like Bertha, Dorothy, Mildred or Gladys. Could I love a child called Beryl even though she has a quarter of my genes residing inside?
Or the baby may be given a relative’s name in honour of a family member blessed with a winsome personality but cursed with an unattractive moniker.
I feel safe from all the cutely spelt names with their superfluity of Es and Is and the unfortunate inventions of a mother determined to be original but fear there is no hope of any of my current favourites making the cut. However, for what it’s worth here are my suggestions: Miranda, Alicia, Saskia.

Fat chance.

Monday, June 06, 2005

I have seen the face of my grandchild on video and on a 3D scan. It is like a miracle. I keep thinking how Leonardo da Vinci would have loved this technology. To see a 19 week foetus, looking a lot like Grumpy Girl and a bit like Matthew but mostly like Golum is a wondrous thing.

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Eighty percent of a granddaughter
Grumpy Girl emails: “Just came back from the 19 week ultrasound. Baby's heartbeat a very impressive 158 beats per minute, four chambers in heart, two hemispheres in brain, thigh bones slightly longer than expected for this age and an 80% possibility that it's a girl!”

Grumpy is going to show us the video, a twenty-minute art-house classic in the making, featuring the inside of the baby's brain, with a supporting cast which includes its spine and a brief cameo performance by the kidneys. Pass the popcorn!

Nobs versus Hoi Polloi
On Saturday I gathered up my Hawthorn and Collingwood supporting colleagues and took them to the Members Reserve at the ‘G’. It was the first time I had ever been to the footy in a mixed marriage situation. I sat between two maggies, L and R who enthusiastically applauded each Collingwood goal and smirked gleefully across me as they got further and further in front.

When I used to watch footy with my sister on a regular basis we tried to steer the ball through the goals by stiffening our bodies and bending in unison in a sort of ritualistic dance. On Saturday I was dancing with R but we weren’t swaying harmoniously, willing the same result. Instead we moved in opposite directions, one of us horribly out of step, and in danger of clashing our heads together. Bizarre.

All I managed to win was an argument about the meaning of ‘hoi polloi’. The consolation prize but no consolation at all.

Monday, May 09, 2005

Full frontal fridge

Well the big old fridge is gone from the hallway at last and we no longer have to squeeze past it dozens of times a day. I had become quite good at this: although I had to turn sideways I didn’t slow down or drop even a morsel of anyone’s dinner.
Now, the simple pleasure of an unobstructed pathway feels like luxury.

The new fridge has a device called a bottle snuggler. It looks like a mould from a knight-in armour’s-codpiece and is supposed to stop your drinks from toppling over. Right Foot and I tried in vain to install it but just could not figure out how it was meant to go.

With the new fridge in situ it was time to stock up on a few favourite tipples. I should have taken the bottle snuggler with me. After a spend up in Dan Murphy’s I called in to Priceline to pick up a prescription. Plastic bags these days biodegrade within minutes and while I waited for my medication a bottle of James Boag fell on the floor and cracked. Soon the unmistakable aroma of bitter beer wafted outwards and upwards from my feet towards the very soignée female pharmacist. How embarrassment! Oh well, at least it wasn’t a VB.

Monday, May 02, 2005

Renovation Bum
There is a book by Kingsley Amis in which he lists the horrors of arriving at an airport:
Disembarkation bum
Customs queue bum
Luggage collection bum
Taxi negotiating bum, etc. etc.

Over the years Right Foot and I have adapted the Bum Recital to suit a range of unpleasant situations, most recently Kitchen Renovation Bum. Carpenters who put up a cupboard, leave the other six in a pile and don’t come back for weeks, incompetent plumbers who charge a fortune, and the biggest Bum of all, the painter who works for an hour, then announces cheerily that he is going into hospital for heart surgery the next day but hopes to be back soon! I may need some heart surgery myself.

Due Recognition
It had been a couple of years since we’d won a Trivia Night and I’d had to forgo the Mary Owen Dinner to attend this one but it was in aid of a very, very good cause and I do so love proper general knowledge questions rather than MTV videos and the other crapola that feature at many triv nights now. The downside of Friday night at the Hawthorn Town Hall was the appalling food but I’ll get over that. What’s really bothering me is the lack of acknowledgement for our performance. Oh sure the MC announced that Table 9 had won but we wanted the world to know that we were representing our University and stuff like that. So just in case anyone’s interested let it be known that Table 9 was occupied by seven librarians from Swinburne, one from La Trobe and one from Holmesglen TAFE. So there.

Grand Footling Update
Week 15 and Grumpy Girl’s grumpalino is developing finger nails and prints. Wow.

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Eurothrash

For 11 years we have lived in an apartment building with communal laundries. For me, this has meant saving every dollar coin that came my way to use in the washers and dryers. It has meant going down two flights of stairs to look for a vacant machine, load the washer, unload the washer, load the dryer, unload the dryer, engage in barneys with my neighbours and stave off passing snowdroppers. It has meant engraving my name on four dozen pegs.

So the piece-de-resistance of our renovation was to be the installation of a washer dryer in the new Bunnings kitchen, Pommie style.
Such things are common in Europe and we finished up with an Italian number with the brand name Thor. For weeks we have been amusing each other with Thor jokes: “I’m thaw but I’m not thorry” and “I’m thaw too but I’m thatisfied”.

But the Thor has had the last laugh. The first plumber we contracted to install it took one look and fled the scene. The second did a bodgy job and when we attempted our first wash the kitchen cupboard filled up with water. The Thor’s next trick was to dance boisterously around the kitchen to its own bump and grind musical accompaniment.

At our next laundering attempt we both stood peering nervously at the Thor which sneered back, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

We were right to be afraid. Euro washing machines have very long cycles. The German one we had in Kuching took days to agitate, rinse and spin. The Thor wash cycle lasts 90 minutes. Our difficulty was figuring out how to get it to move on to the drying cycle and our efforts only succeeded in putting our clothes through the wash three times. That’s three times 90 minutes. At 1.30 a.m. the Thor was still boogeying around the room, the clothes were turning into mulch and Right Foot and I, bleary-eyed and anxious, were huddled in the bedroom awaiting the knock of the angry upstairs neighbour.

We were thaw all right but definitely not thatisfied.

Monday, April 18, 2005

The best news I have ever received in my whole life
After years and years of hoping and despairing, a miracle has occurred and Right Foot and I find that by the end of October, all going well, we will be Grand Feet! Yes it’s true – Grumpy Girl and Thieu (Guess what that’s short for) are having a baby (actually a Capuchin monkey if the photo is anything to go by).

We have been concealing this secret for five weeks now waiting for various genetic tests to be completed but Grumpy has finally given us the go-ahead to broadcast it far and wide.
So to the tune of “My baby just cares for me” please sing along with me:
Our baby’s got arms and legs
That’s what Dr. Skinner says
Our baby’s got eyebrows too
They’re all there on the ultrasound scan
Grumpy Girl is going to make me a gran!

Now at last Right Foot can make a start on all those wooden toys he has collected dozens of books about: Noah’s Ark, The Little Red Engine, A Victorian Dolls’ House and, above all, a stable full of rocking horses. Standby for ‘Rocking Horse Rampant with Flared Nostrils and Ears Erect’, Rocking Horse Couchant with Sable Bridle, Ermine-spotted Saddle and Tail Argent, and Rocking Horse a Little Wobbly, with Dodgy Paint Job but it’s only a Prototype.

My handcraft skills are at a much more rudimentary level so I have sought help from the ABC’s Play School website which has a long list of things to make that are within my capabilities, i.e. that of a preschool child. I think I’ll start with 'Toy Wok' (put a doll and a teddy bear into a wok and pretend it’s a space craft). Easy peasey.

Monday, April 11, 2005

Two weddings and a funeral (with another one to come)

Who WAS that insufferable American with the Kermit voice who presumed to translate the Latin mass and talked over the inspirational music at the Pope's funeral? How crass, rude and arrogant!
We couldn't get a descent picture on SBS so ended up listening to Ray Martin's inanities for a couple of hours. When Ray is the best thing going times are tough.

The rottweiler didn't look too bad in that first outfit but how about her teeth? Why wouldn't you get them fixed when you had the heir to the throne to foot the bill?

On the subject of 'The Bill' spunky June Acland married boring old Jim Carver on Saturday night in the latest episode of the ridiculous soap opera this once great show has become. Will we ever see real policing again? Bring back the scrotes and toe-rags PLEASE.

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Bunnings men have taken over my place completely now. Roy Replacement for Peter who spat the dummy Plumber is, I hope, doing his best to make water come out of the tap at this very moment.
I have to keep escaping to nearby cinemas and have seen three movies in five days. On Sunday, all movied out and with Joe Carpenter firmly ensconced in the kitchen, I took Right Foot to the G to see the Hawks robbed of their only likely victory for the year. Right Foot does not know much about footy and asked a number of very elementary questions to the bemusement of the young woman sitting in front of us. "Which one is Spider?" "Who are the guys in orange?"
The high point was late in the third quarter when he asked, "Who is the one in the lime fluoro pixie shoes?" It was, of course, the great, high profile, former captain, Shane Crawford. General merriment for all within earshot.

On the other hand, the Richmond supporters were still wearing their bloody idiot tee-shirts. Ha!

Friday, April 01, 2005

Part two of the Great Renovation of 05 is underway - the installation of a Bunnings kitchen - which means a constant succession of tradesmen:
Andrew Apprentice Electrician
Peter Plumber
Joe Installer
Frank Tiler
Aldo Not Sure What He Does But Seems To Be Indispensible And Will Have To Be Paid.

None of these guys much likes working on 50 year-old appartments. Peter Plumber was the first to spit the dummy. It was all too hard so he packed up his tools and went home, throwing the schedule into disarray and forcing Right Foot and me to camp in the dining room, boiling kettles and cooking toast on the floor. It's going to be another fun weekend. Grrrr.

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Floored by a flawless floor.
The delays and cost blow-outs are over. We now have an ice-rink gleaming, ballet rehearsal room sheening, Tassie Oak MAGNIFICENT floor. It looks a million dollars which is roughly what it cost. You could eat your dinner off it and we may have to.

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Desperate Housewife

There is no furniture in our appartment and the carpet has been torn up revealing the concrete beneath. And not your smooth grey, parking lot, could-draw-a-hoppy-on-it, kind of concrete. Instead there's a vulcanic, granitey Martian landscape, sulphuric and acne-pitted.

We have rented a neighbouring flat which, despite having no power or hot water and all our stuff piled high, is Ritz-like by comparison. We need so many candles to be able to read in bed that it looks like a black mass and I choke on the smoke when I blow them out. We do the dash between Number 22 and Number 24 in our PJs each morning to take a shower and forage for food.

But amidst the Hell that is renovation I think we finally turned the corner when Right Foot painted the Feature Wall in brilliant yellow. A glimmer of hope is flickering in my heart.

Friday, January 07, 2005

Twelfth day of Christmas yesterday so I took the tree down. It is a melancholy task.

We have only room for a small tree which does its best to showcase our gargantuan collection of gorgeous, gawdy, and oh-my-Gawd! decorations which include a few home madeys and many we have picked up on our travels. My favourite overseas decoration is the cross-eyed Vietnamese Santa and the most intriguing home made one is a glowy white ball with a Christmas wish in red glitter pen from Julianna and Glenn. Nobody knows who Julianna and Glenn are, why they are wishing us 'Merry Christmas' or, more likely, how we have managed to pilfer someone else's Christmas decoration. Just one of the many mysteries to ponder at Christmas time.