Semantically driven

My photo a day project, and other life stuff.

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Archives for June 2005

So come on down, to Pussytown and some birthdays

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My busy week culminated last night after my son’s fourth birthday yesterday. I’ve got this whole week off to recover.

On Friday I had about eight children and their mother’s (and my sister) around at my place for JJ’s fourth birthday party. Luckily for me it was the nicest day we’ve had for over a week and I was able to host it outside. I’d much rather clean up an outside than an inside party.

I ran around like a mad thing that morning, cooking a birthday cake, washing a week’s worth of dirty dog paw prints off the lino floors, tidying up outside, and then doing the hostess with the mostess thing that afternoon. I organised one game, pin the tail on the donkey, and that wasn’t a big of a hit as I would have liked but everyone got a prize and the closest tail got the big prize (thank god for the $2 shops).

Birthdaycake_1

Everyone enjoyed themselves, particularly the birthday boy and he’s gone off to childcare today wearing his number 4 badge he got with one of his birthday cards.

It was his actual birthday yesterday but the reason I didn’t have his party yesterday was because two good friends of mine had a combined 40th on Saturday night and I knew that many of us wouldn’t be up for a kids party on Sunday afternoon.

So onto the combined 40th. It was a big one. It was in a friend’s shed which is normally decked out with six boys bars but us girls did it over for Pussy Galore. I was on one of the bars so as well as decking out the bar for the event, two friends and I had been busy practising two songs to perform on the night with a pussy theme. We did Pussytown (Machine Gun Fellatio) and Funkytown (well, actually we renamed it to Pussytown also) ‘Won’t you take me to, Pussytown?’.

So after the Can Can show by some other bargirls, we all got up on stage and did our Pussytown’s.Pussytown If you’ve made it this far here we are. We were all terrified, especially as the first song we had a verse each to sing.

After my friend did her verse and we did the chorus, everyone was clapping and I couldn’t start my verse straight away but then I just started it. It was like experiencing an out of body experience, singing by myself like that and I don’t really remember it at all now.

The shed was packed out and all I could see were faces and I hadn’t had a chance to go to the toilet beforehand so I’m glad I didn’t wet myself in fright.

The two birthday girls absolutely loved it and we all got really great feedback afterwards even though I know we stuffed up a few things and because of the applause throughout we were thrown out of whack a couple of times. A friend said to me afterwards, ‘Where does your confidence come from?’ I said, ‘It’s not confidence, it’s brashness.’ I don’t even know if that’s correct but I like to challenge myself and getting up in front of a big group of friends is one of those challenges and if I don’t instigate performing, it ain’t gonna come to me. And I enjoy it and hopefully some more stuff will come my way.

I got home just as it was getting light around 7.30am yesterday morning with the knowledge that I had a chance of around two hours sleep before I had to pick up JJ, which I did. It’s the first time I’ve stayed out for a whole night since I was in London in 2000. I felt a bit naughty and a bit scared of how I was going to cope with the day ahead.

After picking up JJ and having a two cups of green tea and a chat with the babysitters, JJ and I got home after picking up a copy of the ‘Home on the Range’ DVD (I had to plead with him not to choose Barbie – where did that come from?). We had lunch then went for a bike ride (he did) on his brand new 2 wheeler bike and trainer wheels. Woo hooo!!!! I’ll be getting a bike soon. I didn’t think of this.

Early night last night. Pajamas on at 8pm, bed after Big Brother, around 9pm. Good solid sleep. Bliss.

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Tempted with some sex, drugs and rock and roll

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My participation in the Adelaide Cabaret Festival was one show I went to last night called Temptation with Christa Hughes (from Machine Gun Fellatio fame among other things) and Svetlanka Bunic (makes sounds with the accordian like I never heard or imagined).

I would kill for a voice like Christa’s and her show was fascinating. As she said at the end, ‘If you liked the show tell your friends to come along. If you didn’t like it tell your enemies to come along.’

If you are embarrassed hearing stories and songs about sex, drugs and rock and roll then you wouldn’t like this show but if you like being entertained with song, talk and mime (along with old movie soundtracks) then you will love it.

She sung with a megaphone and a microphone and the megaphone made a great sound. It was reminiscent of the gramaphone record sound – not that I’m really familiar with that but I have heard that sound on movies.

Afterwards we went to the Kool Kat Festival Club where a real mix of people were hanging out listening to Chad Romero’s Cabernet Cabaret. Chad did not do it for me at all. I think Lucifer’s Lounge do cabaret songs much better. There were lots of people who must not share my opinion about Chad though as they were up on the dance floor dancing. It brought back memories of mum and dad going to cabaret’s in the local town hall when I was a kid. Although dad isn’t much of a dancer but maybe cabaret brought out the groove in him.

I wish I had been able to go and see more cabaret shows as it’s a great festival and a good atmosphere and I recommend it.

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When we’re asked to play God

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Winter has hit us with a vengeance in the last two weeks. It’s rained nearly every day and it’s cold. Last night was particularly windy, cold and rainy to the point where I had a hard time getting to sleep and when I had been asleep for a while I would wake up and need to go to the toilet. Our toilet is down the other end of the house from the bedrooms which is awful at the best of times, but even worse on a cold and stormy night.

The weather must have woken JJ up also as I heard him go to the toilet around 3am. He also obviously had trouble going back to sleep as he toddled up to my room and stood at the door saying, ‘The rain’s too loud mummy. I can’t go back to sleep.’

I told him to just hop back in bed and count himself to sleep. Duh! As if that would work. In other words I was too lazy to get out of bed to comfort him and I didn’t want him in my bed as he’d taken his nappy off and my bed hasn’t got a mattress protector.

After he moaned and grizzled a bit more, and after I said I couldn’t stop the rain a couple of times, I got up, we both went to the toilet – again – and I tucked him in his own bed.

I had to wake him up this morning.

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Busy week ahead

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This week I have got lots to do. Two friends of mine are having a combined 40th this Saturday night and they are taking over the ‘shed’ that has seven bars – usually run by seven men. This means they’ve enlisted the help of their girlfriends (including me) to redecorate the men’s bars.

My bar is decorated so don’t have to worry too much about that, but have to make up a drinks menu so my bar partner is coming around tonight with our staple drink, rum – which neither of us normally drink, so we can roadtest a couple of cocktails to choose our cocktail for the night.

I also have to get my outfit together. The theme of the party is Pussy Galore and our bar name is Rumpy Pumpy so our outfits will hopefully reflect this theme. I’ve bought some fluff to decorate my rumpy pumpy outfit so that will need to be sewn in place.

Not only are there these things to do but it is JJ’s fourth birthday this Sunday. As Sunday will be a write off for many of his friends parents I’m having a little party on Friday afternoon so I’m organising that too. Silly me thought it would be fairly easy but by the time you buy some decoration, stuff to put in lolly bags, think of a game or two to play, think about what cake to make it’s all quite a lot to do. Plus I will have to shop for food Friday morning, clean the floors as the weather outside will probably be awful.

Not only will I be doing this, but I bought him a bike which I have to assemble. I realised yesterday when I opened the box and looked at the instructions that I was a bit stupid for buying a bike I have to assemble as if I don’t assemble it properly it will be quite dangerous. Therefore I’ve invited a friend around for dinner Thursday night who knows about these things and he can help me with the assembly.

And on top of this I’m going to see a show that’s part of the Cabaret Festival on Wednesday night so that night’s a write-off.

Implicit with this going out is organising babysitting and getting to and from venues. The ‘shed’ is too far away for a taxi so it’s always a hassle getting home from these parties. I think the next job I apply for I will be able to give ample examples of how organised I can be and usually am.

Unfortunately I have to work this week but I’m having next week off to recover and do some stuff around the house.

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Baths, sex and boys

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Have been busy this week so here’s a list of Big Brother Australia links for the last week.

My thoughts. As I’ve said before I can’t bring myself to watch Uncut as it all seems quite juvenile or maybe I’m just a prude so I didn’t hear the grunting and groaning between Michelle and Glenn in that bath scene but there’s plenty of stories circulating about it so I didn’t really miss anything.

I wish Glenn hadn’t saved Dean with his three point deduction. Dean should go as he’s an inconsiderate so-and-so.

I’m not sad that Michelle went. Nuff said.

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Bit of a weekend summary – the storm and wine

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The weekend got off to a fine start – NOT. It’s been as dry as a bone here in South Australia and much of Australia until last Friday. I’d heard somewhere there was going to be a storm but I don’t usually take that much notice of the weather forecast as it is quite often untrue.

My friends and I had organised a singing practise down south near Sellicks Beach so I made my way down there to a friends house about 4.30pm so I wouldn’t have to contend with even more dickhead drivers on the Southern Expressway. This stupid excuse for a road is one way at any given time and it caters for traffic going to and from the city, eg commuters during the week and holidayers on the weekend. Because it is one way, the entrances and exits can either be on the right or the left. This means that drivers that might have to exit on the right 20 kilometres down the road stay in the right hand lane doing about 90kmh and our road rule here is keep left unless overtaking. Consequently I hate driving on this road.

I made it safely to my first stop before the final singing stop to hang out with a friend before we both made our way to our other friend’s place for singing. (It would be so much easier if I were using names in this blog.) About an hour after my arrival the storm arrived with rain, lightning and thunder. It was huge, the sound, the light, everything. It made me very happy I had made the drive earlier rather than later as it would have been horrendous and I imagine many peak hour commuters and people leaving to go away for the long weekend were caught in this weather. We turned off all the lights and opened the curtains to look out at the lightning.

Neither of us fancied driving in this weather so we sat to wait it out and the storm abated about half an hour later. I packed JJ into the car and said see you soon to my friend. One minute into the journey it started pouring with rain again and I could hardly see anything because of the rain and because it being the country there were no street lights. There also wasn’t really anywhere to pull over so I slowed right down, clenched my hands tighter on the wheel and thought, ‘I think I can, I think I can’. JJ said, ‘The rain’s really loud, I’m a bit scared, are you scared mummy?’ ‘No’, I squeaked back, lying through my scared teeth. It didn’t help that I saw a black object flying to the left of the car in front of me and my first thought was that they’d hit someone and flung them off into the side of the road. My common sense kicked in very quickly and I realised they just went through a puddle of water, so I slowed down even more and moved to the middle of the road so no huge puddles of water crept up on me to make me slide around the road.

We made it to our destination with the worst thing happening was getting wet while running from the car to inside the house.

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Last weekend was also the Sea and Vines wine and food festival at McLaren Vale. We’d arranged to go on the Monday after yet another singing practise. Monday is a quieter day at these types of festivals as all the people that want to get really pissed go on the Sunday so they have Monday to recover.

We started off at Woodstock winery and who should we see just after rocked up but cute boy and another friend (female). They have hooked up casually apparently. After we ate lunch we went inside the winery to watch the band – Lucifer’s Lounge – and cute boy and casual female friend came in a little later. Cute boy came over to talk to me. After all we did meet each other nearly 20 years ago. We tried to chat but casual female friend kept butting in the conversation with little asides to him. I felt like saying to her, ‘Butt out will you. I’m just trying to have a chat, not steal him.’ Although if I could steal him I probably would. But then he’s come out of a long-term relationship, hence the casualness with female friend.

We hung around there for a little while then went to Coriole winery where Calliente were playing. They’re a jazz outfit and were ok. Apparently Paul Kelly was there. I didn’t see him, but one of my friends did. I didn’t stay for that long as JJ was starting to get restless and it was starting to get a bit late in the afternoon and I wanted to head home before the multitudes did.

I’ve decided next year to get childcare and a driver so I can go and enjoy myself a bit better.

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