51 posts tagged “flamingo files”

Son has just driven off to his univeristy exam. I am more nervous than when I go to exams myself. I guess that a parent always wants the best for their child and even if they are 24 and a big hairy man! I kept a low profile until Son left so that my nervousness wouldn't freak him out.

Daughter2 ran a 5.2km marathon after work last night. It was a twilight marathon. This is the same girl who climbed two of the Glass House Mts last weekend. [When we say mountain in Australia, take it with a little grain of salt. Our Mountains are sometimes more a description than an actuality]. This is the same girl who spent her 15th year horizontal in her bed, with severe chronic fatigue. She is 28 years old now and doing things we never dared hope for her. This weekend she is buying a bike so she can go riding with Daughter1 and The Boy. I can't believe these are my daughters.  It has been a long road for her, but damn, nothing is going to stop her. I am in awe!

Mr FD is on the road in his new car. He keeps phoning me and singing me "I'm driving in my car". Springsteen has nothing to worry about. I would still be his in a blink. I am happy that Mr FD is enjoying the thrill of a new car ...before they repossess it at least! Hopefully he is doing more than just drinving in his car, but making some money as well!

I am feeling a strong desire to start baking again. My nesting instinct is coming back. Damn. First I have to rediscover my house under the filth and dust of the past 12 months. I was going to take before and after photos to show on my blog to motivate me into action, but I fear you would all tell me to change my name to Pig in Mud instead of Flamingo Dancer! You will just have to be content with my written crowing about my domestic superiority instead.

Daytime television viewing is really bad. Well the advertising is really bad. I think I missed out on the Snuggies as it is now summer, but I can still get in on the shamwow offer. I can't help wondering how one washes a shamwow if they absorb all the water? I can also buy life insurance before my medical results come back from the doctor to make my husband happy, and buy funeral insurance so that my children don't have to worry about throwing me in a hole. Then I can lemon detox and shed a dress size [and my health] in two days. After that I can buy Nude cosmetics and hide all the ugly bits - does it come in a drum?  I won't mention the range of sports equipment that I can have delivered to my door either. It is a full regime being made dissatisfied with myself and fearful of life in general.

The crow has left his post. I started lying on my bed with a pile of pillows blocking its view of my face. I did hear a noise at the bathroom window early last night, like a bird clawing against the screen, but I didn't investigate. I am starting to feel like I am in a remake of The Birds!  Between magpie season and being told to walk around with an ice cream container with eyes drawn on the back of it, on my head to avoid a pecking attack and now the Crow Stalker , I feel like I am an endangered species.

Isn't Al Gore looking good these days? Lost weight, better haircut. Does he have a girlfriend?

My mother phones to say that her sister, my aunt, is to have chemo after her bowel cancer surgery. At least that is what I think she said. She told me "you know those tablets you have after you have an operation". Chemo, Mum? "I don't know, I don't ask questions!" Then she proceeds to make all sorts of wild claims and predictions based on no information and no fact. I guess it should be no surprise to anyone that I have a mother who is rampant, but it still surprises me. Was she like this when we were growing up? Surely not. Yeah, probably. Explains a lot doesn't it?

I have spoken to my sister 3 times by phone this week. I love my sister. She doesn't understand me at all, but she loves me. What more can you ask from a big sister? I on the other hand understand her too well, but I still love her. That is what younger sisters are for.

Another niece engaged. Two family weddings planned for next year. We are expecting at least one more yet - wedding that is. The changing of the guard generation wise. We are becoming the elder statesmen/women. It is a nice thing. I am ready to hand over and be dotty and allow them to take the pressure.

I think I will lie here in bed a little longer and think about house cleaning and baking. It is a life and someone has to live it. I sacrifice myself for you!

• The star jasmine is flowering over the arbour outside our patio door. It looks like a huge white bridal bouquet and smells like heaven.

• Daughter 1 has her wedding dress. It took her 20 minutes to select off the rack. Daughter 2 had her bridesmaid dress. It took her 15 minutes to choose off the rack. The Boy has his groom's suit. It took him 90 minutes to choose off the rack...

• Grandma Flamingo fell asleep during the funeral on Friday. I looked at her and she was dozing on the pew. I told her to snap to, or she was in danger of being wheeled out to the hearse. She was ram rod straight for the rest of the service!

• Mr FD is flying to Adelaide tomorrow. Peace in our time! I won't say for whom! He has orders to bring back jumbo Haigh's chocolate frogs. They are HUGE and YUMMY and last about 32 seconds in the Flamingo Dancer household! He has been told not to come home if he fails in his mission.

• God daughter turned 1 last week. She is soooo cute. I played with her on Friday afternoon. We unwrapped her birthday present together. She was very serious about it, with a little frown across her brow until she achieved opening the present and had time to inspect and then the smiles came. A woman not easily won...Flamingo Dancer to the core!

• I understand why Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize. Didn't you breath a sigh of relief when he said the USA wouldn't go ahead with its Stars Wars project and putting bases in Poland etc facing Russia? I felt as though we had taken a giant step back from another catastrophe. I feel it is recognition that the rest of the world is happy dancing that USA is coming into the 21st century and seeking peace, not conflict. Give him another if it helps!

• My brother in law turned 68 on Friday. I have a BIL who is 68! We did not put candles on the cake.

• Son has learnt a new way to get extra money from me. He says he needs cash to get a hair cut and of course no mother is going to refuse that, so I hand over the cash. He somehow forgets to get the haircut and three weeks later asks me for cash for a haircut. Of course he needs it more urgently now and so no mother is going to refuse and so he gets the money. Now when he requests hair cut money, I ask if this is for the pretend haircut or the real haircut. He still gets the money. 

• You know that I am doing this just to waste time away from my studies don't you?

• For those of you who have seen the black face routine on Hey Hey It's Saturday, please don't think that is representative of contemporary Australian humour. Darryl Sommers has been the sad butt of jokes for the past few years and the only way he could cling to celebrity was to revisit a show concept that had its time 20 years ago. I was horrified to hear that they were bringing the stupid show back in the first place - it was always pathetic. A sad example of a television network who thought returning to the past would get ratings. One point though - few people picked up on the fact that the man with the white Michael Jackson face was in fact an Indian. Not that it made the skit any more palatable. Still the hoohah doesn't stop the children dying of starvation and malaria in Africa does it?

• Now that my daughters live away from home, it takes half a day of phone calls to catch up on my family each week - Mother Flamingo Dancer, Sister Flamingo Dancer, Daughter1 and Daughter 2...whew. Mr FD gets his mother and usually his sister, though there are times when we fight over answering the phone when we suspect it is her and I get the short straw and have to speak with her...

• It is raining tiny tiny rain drops. The first rain we have had in over 2 months. I am pretending I don't hear it, in case I scare it away. The lawn is crispy dry under my feet when I walk out to the clothes line...Mr FD just called out that it is raining. I told him to shut up. He apologised automatically as he is trained to do. I can smell the dust settling. Heaven.

• BIL asked me if I went to communion during the funeral mass. We both said at the same time "because that is the only way people know you are there!" I love my BIL - he understands my evilosity.

• It is raining harder now. Obviously the rain doesn't read blogs. Yet.

• I can't avoid the study any longer can I? Can I?

Winter is not 35 Celsius. It is not officially Spring until next week. This really sucks!

Mr FD is sick now. He came home from work yesterday and said he need a little guardian angle to look after him - in his opinion he was dying. He was in danger of death too because I almost throttled him. Excuse me, you expect what, by whom? And where were you when I was so ill - IN ANOTHER STATE! We are now locked in a very competitive coughing contest.

I went to the optometrist today - yes time for new glasses. She told me I had a "beautiful pupil". I think it is up there with one of the more unusual compliments I have had. Apparently my long vision is twice as good as it was 6 years ago and that is quite common as we reach our 40s and 50s it seems. Our long vision improves but our short vision gets worse! The human body huh.

Had to get my passport renewed to - where did that 10 years go, not oversease obviously - and of course the photo looked like a prison mug shot as they always do. I looked like something that had been in the back seat with Hugh Grant down on the wharf sometime in the 80s! The girl at the post office where I had to go to have the application processed looked at the photo twice and said it doesn't look like you. Eventually she agreed it did "I guess you would look like that after travelling for 30 hours". Thank you dahling. Then she asked to see my drivers permit, which is probably about 3 years old. Of course I have perky little pixie hair and a dark burgundy brown hair colour - and now I am standing in front of her with longer grey blonde hair - and she says without a flicker of an eyelash, "I prefer the driver's permit look". LIKE I WAS ASKING!

I am going to bed, I may not get up until 2014.

Daughter2 and I have a code. If she sends me a text saying that she feels unwell, I reply with a text that just says Stoke, Pat, Rub. It is code for a Mummy hug. She replies AAAHHHH or Purr, or sigh. It appears to work. She has a cold. She wants to bring her germs home at the weekend – an offer no mother can  resist!

I have an internal locus of control in an extended family of external locus of control. No wonder I march to a different anxiety! Queen of my own destiny vs catastrophe thinking.  I see clearly now. I may cry.

I sent a text to The Boy upon hearing of the official engagement. It read – Listen very carefully, I will say this only once (ok it was a text, not a voice message, so maybe not the best start). Take care of our girl, or I will tie you upside down from the clothes lines and spin it really hard. I know where you live. Welcome to the Family, The Boy. Flamingo Dancer. I like to start on the right foot, and a good dose of healthy fear in the beginning is always a great start, I think. Kiss Kick Kiss principle. He replied: Thank you, I like a good spin on a Hills Hoist!

Do you ever stop and wonder why? Just,  why?  No, me neither.

The family next door have a swimming pool. Their pool pump appears to be on overload and is making a noise, night and day. The noise is slowly turning me insane (well, more insane). Is there a swimming pool equivalent of postal? Poolal? Whatever, they are going to get it, if they don’t turn the damn thing down soon  (I think I am channeling my mother now – the birds, the birds!) Anyway, the cute little girl with the curls who always cries and screams in the pool is gonna get it first. Then the boy who throws things over our fence and I have to throw back (the things, not the boy thought there is a thought). Kapow!  I have my rubber duckies assembled…

Mother-in-law is messing with my mind. First the Big Whatever and now SHE! I phoned her – yes, even she was stunned- to inform her of the engagement and somehow in the conversation I ended up saying “Oh that’s because I am absolutely perfect” (I was joking, Joyce, though it may be truth)…and the damn woman AGREED! After more than 32 years she gives me a compliment! What a wasted life – her's, not mine. I am a gift to humanity.

I am saddened that people consider the internet little more than a money making device. I shouldn’t be expected to pay money for an online photo of a children’s magazine (Teddy Bear Magazine) from the 1960s when I actually have copies in my cupboard, but am too lazy to photograph for my reading history assignment. There is no justice in the world. Another thing to change when I am Queen of the Universe.

Speaking of family games. My sister has been away so I just sent them a text about the engagement. She returns home last night and phones me. She asks me what is “news”. I say didn’t you get my text? Apparently, though they got the phone at Christmas, they don’t know how to open text messages (yes I will show them). So I tell her “the news”. She acts all surprised. We talk on – then she lets slip that Mother had told her, but Mother wasn’t sure if she should be telling other people. Geeze Louise this family! I had told Mother that it was public news – hell the world knows! She was lower on the list than my blog readers! Why do they always play this game of not knowing when they know – always keeping secrets?  They drive me crazier. If I didn’t want them to know I would not tell them… as obviously they can’t keep secrets! They incomplete me.

The End

Mr FD asked me what I was going to do today. I said I had decided to take up tap dancing and was going to practice in the laneway next to our house, as it has a lovely straight cement path that I could tap to and froth upon. He did not blink. He did not question. I think the surprise has gone from our marriage.

Why is it that having a take home exam to prepare for, makes me suddenly see all the creeping cobwebs in the corners of my ceilings? Heaven help me, I almost went and found a feather duster to remove them. Then I remembered my blog needed checking...whew. Now I can avoid both study and cleaning!

Son does not call me Mum, Mother, Mama, Queen. He calls me Pig (in that nice you are a cute cuddly pig - ok use your imagination people!) His usual greeting is either to pat me on the stomach and say Pig, or to poke me with something and say Pig. This happens at random times during the day. His favourite is to use one of those cupboard rolls inside of wrapping paper and poke me with that. If I am wearing anything with a hood, he sneaks up on my blind side and places things inside the hood. He usually has a couple things in there before I feel the weight. Last time it was a box of matches, a banana, some mail, and a sunglasses case. The banana gave him away. I tell him that I could take him out any day...he just smiles and wanders away to plot another surprise attack.

Do I tell Daughter1 how TIDY our house has been this week while she has been away on vacation with The Boy? Perhaps not.

Daughter2 and I went to the movies and I used my student card to buy my ticket. Her movie ticket cost $15.00. Mine was $6.95! Was her viewing $8 better than mine? She was so socially embarassed when I flashed my student card (only the student card!). She felt like I was reversing the natural order. She did buy me a drink for the movie though - she knows I am a penniless student!

I was telling my hairdresser about my mushrooms yesterday and she told me that once they went to a camping area and someone there picked mushrooms and went around giving them to everyone at the camping site - no, take them, they are fine to eat, trust us we know- Hairdresser's parents said no. They were awoken in the middle of the night by a fleet of ambulances...yes, one trust too many.Obviously never told about not taking things from strangers.

Why do flu shots make my arm hurt for days afterwards? A least this time I didn't get the big, swollen, hot, red lump...just pain that I have to take out on MrFD.

I made the mistake of turning on a Michael Palin doco about the Phillipines last night. Mr FD sat there repeatedly saying "I've been there! I've been there!". I know...does he think I never noticed his leaving the country? His absence for over a week? Well... maybe he has a point...

Two more percent of water in our storage dams and apparently we will officially be declared out of drought. We can also take longer showers!!!!! It wont be the same though. It is like all those depression babies, now I am set in my ways and have to be water frugal...remember the drought? No one expects the drought....I must obey - except for maybe the shower thing, especially in winter. I love my shower. Not as much as my bed, but I do love my shower. Bed sigh.

We have all those lovely autumn shadows, and the light is somehow softer. It is still 30C during the day but it is teasing us with autumn. Autumn and Spring in Brisbane are just wonderful. It makes me feel alive. Winter is barely a hiccup - sorry I spent 25 years in cold mountainous Toowoomba where they really do have winter. Summer is horrid here. The price I pay.

GreatNiece turned 4 on Sunday. She opened all her presents from her Grandma who gave her things like clothes, and books and pretty shoes, and then looked her Grandmother straight in the eye and asked "Where are the toys?" We train them young, yes indeedy. Ask and thou wilt receive. Knowing my sister she will be out buying extra presents all week. Nothing like a little catholic guilt to spark the fires.

The End.

Dog daze

The dog that rules next door (back fence world)  and I have this routine. Everytime I walk out to my clothes line he barks at me and I say "be quiet doggie" and he goes away. He never barks at the people walking down the lane beside both our homes, even when they ride skate boards or make lots of noise. He just barks at me. So, on laundry day we go through the routine several times. Do you think he is training me? Am I Pavlov's dog?

I have grounds for divorce. Well, more grounds for divorce. I have 4 coffee/tea cups that only I drink from. They are all in different shades of blue. Daughter1 has a couple of mugs that have been given her at various times and she usually drinks from those. Mr FD gets all the ugly mugs that various relatives and secret santas have given us over the years. He gets these mainly because he doesn't care what colour his cup is, he is more worried about the size! More importantly he has a habit of dozing off with a cup in his hand and letting them drop onto the tile floor - they do not survive and he only just survives the fall out too! So there is the background, people. Last night, Mr FD made tea. Good boy. He made tea for three - all in my private blue cups. D1 and Mr FD used MY blue cups. This is non negotiable. The only reason that his life was spared was due to the fact that he had the sense to hand me the cup that said "Queen of the World". Obviously there was one grey cell working.

Still eating left over birthday cake. I sent some home with various birthday people but we still have a number of pieces left (they were the size of restaurant cakes, big cakes). I am so anal about my gluttony that I have to alternate the pieces of cake that I eat. If I just ate the choc jaffa then next time I MUST eat the carrot cake. I can't eat two choc jaffa pieces in a row. I need to relax - I need to free eat! I may need a support group to achieve eating two of the same pieces in a row...Cake Eaters Anon?

TOTUS  - teleprompter of the united states. My new pin up blog! http://baracksteleprompter.blogspot.com/

I am so pathetic. I had to get a note from my physiotherapist yesterday saying that I missed a class due to having physiotherapy. All my classes have attendance requirements because we are such an intensive one year course and if you miss more than 2 classes without a medical certificate then you fail the subject (so they say and I am too nerdy to test the waters on that one!). FD was absent from class as she was being manipulated, signed the physiotherapist. I figure the neck collar and back strapping will seal the deal for me today! I think it was a great help from the Big Whatever to cause me more pain and suffering just when I have 5 assignments due by April 9th. Thanks fella.

Autumn? what autumn? it is still 28C here today.

Our stock market is up this morning thanks to Obama's latest plan. Now watch him sneeze and all the lemmings will sell. Talk about a bunch of hysterics. Is it a condition that you can only invest in the stock market if you are prone to group think and mass hysterics? Did their mother not tell them the rule that you don't play on the stock market unless you can afford to lose the money?

I need a cup of tea...I hope I can find a clean blue cup...

The end 

I am exhausted by the hot humid Queensland weather that makes the perspiration drip off the end of my nose when I bend down to pick up the MANY pairs of shoes that my family leave on the floor of the television room.

I am tired of Oprah working out her own personal issues on television and for assuming we are all as screwed up as her.

I am angry at Martha Stewart for extolling people to consume, consume, consume and making women feel inferior for not being able to do it all.

It annoys me, that because MR FD works full time, the fact that I have lost my job will not be accounted for in any statistic. All those jobless numbers are incorrect because there are thousands of women like me who cannot claim any government help and yet have lost their job. Equality – bah hum bug, it doesn’t exist!

I am happy that people ask me why, at almost the age of 51, I am going to retrain as a teacher. My answer is two fold – I need a job that pays and is secure as  I get older, and two, and this is the one that is coming to mean the most to me, I want to give something back to the community. I think that as we get older we desire more to give something back to the world and this is the way I want to give back – to teach, to help children become the people they want to be.

I want to punch out car salesmen who lie to me and pretend to be my friend while I am considering buying their car. Even if I say “cut the crap” to them, the lying is so enculturated in them that they can’t stop, they have to continue the spin. They insult my intelligence.

I am sorry for people who feel embarrassed because they have lost their job due to the current circumstances. I will not be brought low by this...I am quite forthcoming in telling people “I am one of the GREAT UNEMPLOYED”. Speak out, don’t be invisible, I say.

Can I mention the humid weather twice? I hate the way it makes the salt stick in the salt shaker and clogs the shaker’s holes. I hate the bread going mouldy before we can finish the loaf.

I am being driven mad by ANTS. Ants on the sink, on the kitchen bench, on the floor, in the bathroom, on the windowsill.  DEATH TO ALL ANTS. What is Obama going to do about that one, huh?

I am evil. I wait for the charity caller to finish their appeal and then I tell them I am unemployed and have no money to give. I take perverse pleasure in their small “oh” as they hang up.

My mother depletes me. Always has, always will, but we will always love each other.

Dumbo IT man has left the building. We are still with Dumbo IT for a wee bit longer but “the man” is no more. One bright spark in our day.

The wellington boot was still by the side of the road this morning. It looked sad in the bright clear sunlight.

There is this baby kak yellow combi van that I see driving around town all the time. Actually I think it is stalking me. I even saw it way on the other side of Brisbane a couple of weeks ago. Possibly the owner lives out of it. I see it mostly on my way to and from the Basement of Discontent . I saw it again this morning – it was on the back of a tow truck. I guess it won’t be stalking me for awhile.

The Assistant has created a bitter and twisted jingle about how we are being made redundant on Christmas Eve. “Ho. Ho, home you go – and stay there”. I followed a city bus today that had an ad on the back for one of those navigation thingies. It said “Ho, Ho, Go”. I think the Big Whatever is sending me messages again.

If we are the outsourced, what does one call the organization  who are taking over? No, not the evil empire. Not their fault. The Acceptors?  The Perpetrators? Anyway, I digress as is the routine. We just got a press release that their CEO is flying the coup – new challenges and all that. Confidence building isn’t it? Have been told that the jobs should be advertised today and we can apply if there is anything there that looks remotely like our position. Oh, and if none of their existing employees want it first. As I have diminishing choices I will apply and in my usual style if anyone tries to outmaneuver me I will knife them in the back with my trusty, fluffy,  pink flamingo pen. I may even find that baby kak combi and stalk them, armed with my trusty stick. I just want this little adventure over please. I so want to apply for my own job and ask to do it for less pay…

Daughter2 on the other hand has just got a great promotion, and apparently in record time for her organization. So, may I bask in mother pride for a moments,  please, folks? Thank you, thank you, thank you for much.

Son and I are working on my new blog site. Well I am working on it and he is ignoring my entreaties. “MUM! I have other things to do too you know”. The sleeping in to 3pm? The visiting of friends until 1am? Anyway, it will eventually be unveiled. It is not connected to vox. I want to have some fun so have got my own little spot. All will be revealed. However, when the move is made I will be making this vox blog neighbourhood only. I hope you visit me on the other blog, but I would miss you all too much to close the door.

Daughter1 has picked up a corner computer desk for gratis so Mr FD and I have to go and help her collect it over the weekend. The same weekend that I am to help Daughter2 move. Still in the neck collar too! Mr FD is borrowing a ute (truck) from his workplace and so we will motor on down the highway and collect the said thing. So much for that weekend!

The END

Our acting Operations Manager has earned the nickname Mr Suffleupagus as so few of the staff have sighted him in the 6 weeks or so since he was appointed. I have worked with him on projects before so he greets me, but he can walk into the office where I am talking to other staff members and only greet me. They are somewhat perturbed at their non-existence. I tell them to consider themselves lucky as it means he wont “delegate” anything to them.

SWKK is arranging her own going away party! Friday week. Be there, with a plate. I know where the plate might go too…

If this life doesn’t pick up soon, I am going to be really bad in my next life. What is the good of putting in all the ground work if this is as good as it gets?

Mr FD and I are on a quest this Christmas season. We are going to try and watch every Christmas movie shown on television between now and Christmas. We have notched up two this week. Last night was an appalling thing with Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis. It was painful. Why Jamie Lee allowed herself to have that hair cut I will never know. Sad. Sad I tell you.

Go on, outsource the company and see if I care….

I heard a noise before. I suspect it was me screaming.

Definition of cute: Three year old who describes her Grandma as “my kind of girl”.