blogopera update

the latest blogopera episode has been uploaded

Novels in my life: part one

Remains of the day


















Dedicated to the year ten English teacher who set an assignment 'design a book cover', and gave a B to the girl who designed the back cover because of course I meant the front cover, thus punishing the girl for her (complete) inability to draw, although the subject in question was English, and wasn't having compulsory art lessons suffering enough for a person like her? And also that B completely ignored the fact that in choosing to design the back cover, the girl demonstrated excellent creativity and insightful analysis of the book in question as well as a good understanding of all that there is in a book as object (isbn etc etc etc) and even her mother agreed that she was not being a smart arse and praised her creativity. And yes, that was the same teacher who taught Shakespeare by assigning a part from Romeo and Juliet to different students in the class and making them read it aloud day after day after week and stretching into a month, and NEVER NOT ONCE EVER giving the girl in question a part to read. Bitter? Yeah. And twisted too.

Birthday candles

The candle burns not for us, but for those whom we failed to rescue from prison, who were shot on the way to prison, who were tortured, who were kidnapped, who 'disappeared'. That's who the candle is for.
Peter Benenson, founder of Amnesty International.

Amnesty International is 45 years old today

eye of the beholder

WTF and OMG

'Do I look funny in this?' she asked.

'Yes,' he said. 'And gorgeous too.'

'I hope so.'

Adelaide is off to stand up on a stage in front of people and try to make them laugh.

And what's the one thing you don't want to hear at your second-to-last rehearsal?

'Erm...what did you do with your funny stuff?'

WTF and OMG indeed.

torture and the hypotheticals

The Hypotheticals replayed last night on Channel 9 ended in a most disturbing way. Too many people around the table - including the new people's hero Bill Shorten - were willing to consider transporting someone (who may or may not have information about Osama bin Laden) off to Egypt where there is some new torture method to do with teeth.

Amnesty International says this:
Torture and other ill-treatment that is cruel, inhuman or degrading is repugnant, immoral and illegal, and always wrong...Torture or other ill-treatment not only harms the victim, it brutalises the perpetrator and the societies that allow it to happen. It is cruel, inhuman and degrades us all.

To add your name to 11000 candles to stop torture, visit the website here.

And Bill Shorten: you've got some thinking to do (IMHO)

odd choice

Say you were a bit shorter than most other people you knew. And say a couple of years of child-bearing plus too much red wine plus genetics had left you with not insubstantial hips and a bottom that makes sitting quite comfy really.

Would you buy something from a label called wombat?

Sunday shopping in the Mall

The day is grey and they are knocking the tram barn down. She has never known a time that the tram barn was used and the tram she gets off now spends its nights down at Morphetville.

There is a road, a barricade, a man with a reflective jacket and a radio. She can’t get close enough to take a photo. But because of the way the wind blows, she gets a light spray from the hose they are using to keep down the dust.

She leaves Victoria Square, walks along King William Street, and it must be the day for it.

They are knocking The Criterion down.

She is not one to huff and puff about things that aren’t the same and she tries not to say too often we all used to and isn’t it a shame? And did she mention her family’s income depends on the fact that when one building goes down another goes up in its place.

But they are grace-filled buildings, and when they get knocked down, no one even bothers to watch.

She reaches the Beehive Corner. She would be cross if Haigh’s got knocked down. She starts her shopping with a packet of dark frogs. She has earlier promised herself that she will not, but she does not berate herself for the chocolate slip. Perhaps she should have chosen peppermint today.

On Sundays in the Mall, most of the good shops are closed. She never comes in, so she hadn’t known.

She is here now, and has to make do. She buys the present first.

There is a school band, playing under the canopy. They are lucky, because the forecast was for rain. Some of them wear uniforms and some of them do not quite. Their uniform doesn’t include a tie. They make her think of her boyfriend who played a trumpet and her brother who played the trombone.

The teacher is not young. She imagines that he thinks, in February every year, can I do another year of this?

And then he thinks: but if I didn’t, what would I do?

branching out

The adelaide blogopera experiment is here

This school would be perfect if...

It was her introduction to the phenomona known as pupil-free days.

Once upon a time

It's true: if you eat enough chocolate frogs you will look like one.

She could only hope that the mister - a prince of the handsomest kind - would take the time to kiss her before he scoffed her down.

Moroccan Rose

The cream is Moroccan Rose and new.

It is thick and rich and coloured gently pink.

She scoops it on after she has towelled her hair and before she brushes powder on her cheeks. Left arm, right arm, left leg, right.

The lid and the label are black and after only a week, they are showing her fingerprints.

It has the kind of smell which wafts in and out of her day and makes her reach for memories that haven't been made.

boxing rules

She heard on the radio, that after the fight between Anthony Mundine and some dude called Green, a bunch of stoushes broke out in pubs where the fights had been showing on the televisions.
And isn't that the kind of world you want to be bringing two little boys up in? she thought to herself.

It was an imperfect sentence and technically flawed, but she knew what she meant.

today at a large and soul-less shop

'No, sorry, it isn't worth fixing this camera you've only had for three years...anything to do with the batteries and it's a whole new motherboard...nah, it's not even worth sending it away...we don't sell these anymore...pity your warranty has expired...let me show you this new one it's got face recognition, it's really cool...'

Avert eyes from all ridiculously appealing consumer goods including televisions you don't need binoculars to see and dvd players which would mean you could start watching movies again.

Trudge, trudge, trudge, mutter, mutter, mutter...yes, we're going home now, please don't jump on the lounge...no daddy does not let you bounce on the lounges in shops...nor does your granny...please don't yell at me.

Standing in the doorway, checking everything is back in bag after accidental spill.

Overheard: 'yeah, look, mate, can't stop now, get your missus to give mine a ring...yeah, look, I'd better leave it with you, you know what my missus is like it'll never get done'.

Get in the car. Leave the car park without running anyone down.

Is it bed time yet?

It doesn't matter what time you go to bed, the planes and the wattle birds all start again at dawn.

Final footy post for the week

Dear Chocko

It's a poor workman blames his tools.

Love, Adelaide

Instead of listening to Phillip Adams, I listen to..

Note to KG: it is rarely ironic, and never ironical.

Also, could you be a little less partisan, and a little less parochial.

elevenses

No one ever achieved greatness sitting their kid in front of the CD player.

Silence from the child (or as close to it as you can expect from a three year old), but you try concentrating with they might be giants, bananas in pyjamas, or dinosaur tales in the background. Even quality stories and tunes burrow themselves into your brain and leave no room for original, or even lucid, thought.

'Come on, let's go for a walk,' she said. At least she could exercise her body if not her brain.

'I'm listening to my CDs,' he said with that particular tone in his voice.

May as well fold the clothes then, she thought.

morning person

They needed to work on their morning routine.

'See you when I get home, I love you, don't forget to wake Mum up at eight o'clock' just wasn't cutting it.

whoops

Oh. She did, in fact, have somewhere she should have been on Saturday night. And while she could offer all manner of excuses, they would sound undergraduate, and in the end it came down to this:

'I forgot.'

'Perhaps,' the mister said, 'a little less of the red?'

Port plays the Bulldogs

She was no expert, but she had some advice nonetheless.

Kick it to Cornes.

Do it for your jumper.

And if you can't think of your jumper, remember your mum is watching.

Update: thrashed. Glad it was the mister's turn with the season ticket.

wasabi peas

The wasabi peas were not what she had expected, but she would be buying more next week.

Another Saturday night in begins

The desk was positioned so that the fire warmed the back of the chair and for no reason at all (that she could think of) she remembered the smell of perms.

The wine was not her favourite, but it was cheap if you bought it by the case.

The boy who looks nothing like her knows that four plus three equals seven and eats fresh asparagus stalks for tea while the other one plays they might be giants for the millionth time that week and even where do they make balloons has started to give her the shits.

The skeleton pyjamas have not dried in time to be worn tonight and neither have her favourite pillowcases.

But she does all her worrying during the day and thinks she will use the night to sleep. She swigs again at the red just to make sure, and she is sorry that at the very moment she was standing at the cheese counter today she had remembered that she does not want to put on any more weight, so there was no camembert or blue vein to be had for another week.

google again

Apparently, if you google mister dishwasher adelaide, you will be led to this blog (yes, no 1 out of 3740 search results).

That's the kind of stuff you can't make up.

PS If you, or someone you know, have swallowed a metal marble, seek urgent medical advice. You will not find such advice here. If you are thinking of doing it: don't.

Don't look for lanky here

The whole family had the kind of legs which meant they were always making, or paying for, cuffs.

You'd miss a night at home watching Tony Jones for this

When Adelaide were a wee a bit younger than she now is, she had looked at the people sitting in the seats at Hoodoo Gurus concerts and thought to herself why even come if you're just gonna sit in the seats. What's the point if you're not gonna dance?

And now, having spent the night listening to the wondrous, the glorious Ben Harper from the seats, she understood.

There are times when you want the music to keep you still.

Can't concentrate

There are days when there is nothing you can do but fold the towels, wash the floors and turn the music up.

On the stairs at school

This morning, at the bottom of the stairs, they bumped into one of Adelaide's favourite little girls. An intriguing soul she is, with a beautiful coat and a mother who delivers babies or something like that, so quite often at the end of the day, the receptionist calls out you're going to out of school care, but your mum's gonna get here as soon as she can.

'You see this?' the little girl said. She was wearing her beautiful coat with the buttons all done up, and she was holding a small, shimmery purple ball. She shook it, and the ball made a dull tinkling sound. 'I found it on the road. It means I win the competition. We said the first one to find one of those on the road wins the competition.'

Her boys looked at Adelaide, because we don't have competitions and winners in our house

'One of Santa's reindeers dropped it,' the girl said.

Her oldest boy, a Santa Claus agnostic, looked again at Adelaide.

'Did they?' Adelaide said. She smiled and wished that she could put her arm around the girl's shoulders, rub her hands down her hair. 'We'd better start going up the stairs.'

'Do you know what I wished for?' They all walked on the left side and held the rail. There were no parents coming back down. 'I wished that a reindeer would drop this on the road. And they did.'

Her oldest boy looked around at Adelaide. Adelaide shook her head.

And then, when they got to the top of the stairs, everyone's favourite school support officer was there.

'Oh, hello,' the little girl said to the SSO. She did not look back at Adelaide and her boys. But even as Adelaide took the lunch box out of the bag, held the reader folder while the reader was painstakingly exchanged, Adelaide was watching the little girl.

'This is from my cat,' the little girl said showing the SSO the little purple ball. 'We got her put down, and this is all that's left.'

'That's very sad,' the SSO said.

'It was my dad's cat,' the little girl said.

'Oh,' the SSO said. 'Do you think you need a hug?' And that SSO was the kind of friend who could walk into your house at exactly the right time, and do the dishes for you, and you would like that she hadn't asked, and then you'd let her make you a pot of tomato and lentil soup. And when she left, you'd realise you hadn't cried for over an hour.

The little girl shook her head, turned and walked towards her classroom.

The SSO caught Adelaide's eye, smiled.

'How about those miners?' she said to Adelaide.

Retail therapy

On Saturdays, she thinks of the days when her mother and her brother always slept in.

Dad did the dishes and if they had lived in the city, she would have watched cartoons. When the dishes were done, she followed Dad to the green moke he drove, and they did the shopping down the street.

Her mother and her brother were still asleep.

She wore her netball uniform and Dad knew everyone. She stood nearby while he talked at some, nodded at the words of others. She pushed small stones into small piles with her feet or jumped around cracks or wrote monologues of things she should have said. Later on, she would ask for a dollar and go into the newsagent to buy a new book.

When he is listening to someone, Dad still folds his arms like that.

At Morrell's, the girls behind the counter stuck pencils behind their ears and Dad said 'a kilo of unwashed'. They added rows of numbers by whispering under their breath. You could pay by cash or cheque, the new Coles hadn't opened yet and Tom's didn't sell much in the way of fruit and veg.

The butcher gave her fritz and talked to Dad about the pigeons he was racing that week. The butcher mumbled everything. She remembers the silver rail she would lean on and the mirror behind the meat.

By the time they got home, the washing machine was on. Was the laundry floor always flooded with clothes and suds?

They carried the shopping in and put it in the corner, just inside the kitchen door. Every now and then, when no one was looking, the cat got into the meat. Someone had to clean out the fridge every now and then. Their freezer was on the bottom, and it was something that everyone noticed. They said our freezer is on the top.

In the afternoons, she went to netball, her father went to hockey and her brother did whatever it is that younger brothers do. Her mother stayed home to sew houndstooth jackets and plant Chinese money trees.

In those days, they ate tea together every Saturday night and these days, when things go arse-up, it’s the Saturdays she thinks about.

The washing is urgent now

The jumper fell on her hips in a most unflattering way, but at least it didn't smell.

before things get too serious

Q: What did the 0 say to the 8?

A: Nice belt.

Christmas cards in May

The Christmas cards from her best friends were still on the mantlepiece. One of the cards had come in November, and here we are in May. She saw the cards every day, but she looked at them only every now and then.

This morning she picked them up, one by one, but she did not put them down. She held them in a small pile in her hand. The dust from the cards brushed against, then settled in, her fingertips. It was a sensation she had never liked and when she was young she used to lick the tips of her fingers then rub them against her thumb. It was something that had annoyed her mother.

She used her other hand to rub her eyes then scratch her hair. She had showered as soon as she got out of bed, but there were nights which could not be washed away.

Now that she had them in her hand she did not know what to do with the cards. She could see the dust on the mantlepiece, and it felt wrong to put them back.

The window rattled in the way it had started to do. The top window pane was still cracked and had that small, inexplicable hole. It was old, thin glass. And rattling like that. It was the kind of thing you should fix.

It was a good place to put the cards though. Over there on the window sill. She could move the rocks and the broken cup. And the paint was light, so you couldn't really see the dust.

If the cards were there, then from her desk, she would only have to turn her head a little and she would be able to see them. All lined up.

And she could remind herself to be the person her friends thought she was.

good news

Adelaide lifted the lid of the toilet seat only to find that it had already been cleaned.

And people say romance is dead.

Mrs Hubbard

After checking all the normal hiding spots, both hers and the mister's, Adelaide wished the mister had either:

a. bought more chocolate when he did the shopping over the weekend

or

b. not eaten it all while he was home by himself over the weekend.

It would be good when the children were old enough to be sent off to the shops.

Shopping list

The best thing about the mister's shopping was that it always contained generous numbers of not-bad dips; a good quantity of a good class of blue vein cheese; olives toward the better end; and a packet of soy sausages for the nights no one wanted to cook.

All of which Adelaide had now consumed. And she'd barely been back in the house one full day.

Wallowing

Adelaide opened the letterbox to find that her genius remained unrecognised - in fact, rejected - by all but her children. And a few others who were highly supportive, but lacked influence outside their own spheres.

And anyway, this wasn't about genius. It was about skills and knowledge and experience, her possession of which she had most clearly demonstrated.

She took a deep breath, walked out of the post office and looked both ways before she crossed the road.