The Plague and Other Gifts From God

WARNING: IF YOU ARE IRISH, CATHOLIC OR EASILY OFFENDED PLEASE DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING. This post meanders a tad because I was bombed on Valium a little tired when I wrote it.  Also, I love the Irish (paricularly YOU Melon) but reserve the right to ridicule them because I am one.....a bit like I can poke fun at fat people....'cause I am one.....and that means no one can sue me because it's not really that offensive.  I am, in effect, offending myself.  I also learnt at Journalism School that truth is the best defence (or is that with an s?). That doesn't work when you apply it to netball though.
I'm going to bed now.

The Plague and Other Gifts from God  The Rant That Has Secured My Place in Hades

When God created man She was premenstral.
Or drunk. Or hungover.
Perhaps she was hungover because she was premenstrally drinking.
She also didn't like the Irish very much.
My own Leprechaunian lineage is a case in point.
"Gaelic f*ckerrrrrrrrrrrrs!," She cried as She flattened a face, pugged a nose and inserted a bad temper.
(I may have made that last bit up because I'm sure that God doesn't swear and I'm unsure whether I need to be nice about Her because I'm meant to be Catholic and being guilty goes with the territory and I don't want to end up in Purgatory for eons).

Whenever someone in our family walks into a bank with a sawn-off shotgun behaves in an antisocial manner Dad always says "Oh, that's the Mad O'Callaghan coming out...."
Someone should have spayed Mad O'Callaghan back when he was a Fomhoire cavorting with evil faeries, giants and leprechauns.  I'm sure we could have avoided at least one world war and possibly the spread of the bubonic plague.
Whenever one of our relatives is arrested the subject of malicious gossip, Mum (of dour English Methodist stock) purses her lips and sniffs something about "the mad Irish".
I merely blame the O'Callaghans for my stumpy legs, manic depression and sexual attraction to paper clips.

It is interesting to note that whilst God quite obviously didn't like the Irish, the Irish are exceedingly obsequious when it comes to God.  Kind of like an abused dog.
You need only consider the potato famine and Angela's Ashes to conclude that the Irish servility in the face of The Almighty is kind of perverse.
(It may also account for the fact that the Irish also drink more alcohol per capita that any nation in the developed world).
Take for instance the pop star status of the Parish Priest.
In days gone by the having Father Finnegan at the dinner table was akin to getting a passport straight to Heaven with no purgatorial stop-overs.
Whilst extra white sauce on the corned beef probably saved a dozen or so souls, slipping Father Finnegan a fiver with his after-dinner sherry was a gold plated guarantee of a five star suite in the House of Many Mansions.
And that is how I came to stab a priest.
Well I wanted to, but it was my grandfather's funeral, which called for a level decorum of which I am not particularly renowned.
Ol' Father Altarwinebreath was pontificating hellfire and brimstone and the whole "Let's-hope-dear-old -(insert name)-doesn't-get-stuck-in-purgatory-too-long" thing when he took a long meaningful look at my grandmother's purse.
My pulse quickened as the demon within (lets call him Legion) stirred.  Veins pulsed in my temples and my talons extended.  It was all I could do not to leap upon the pulpit and rip out the mercenary bastard's jugular.  Perhaps it was just the garlic necklace that saved his life.

*sigh*  the plasticity of religious protocol.

Except when it comes to Methodists.  With Methodists you can be a teetotalling Sunday School teacher who prays every night, never has sex, wears a hair shirt and self flagellates and still end up burning in hell.
With the Catholics anything goes, provided you can turn a blind eye and hand over your credit card details (the Vatican has now approved PayPal).
One of my ancestors, Seamus O'Callaghan,  bludgeoned fifteen grannies with his fiddle at a County Clare bingo night**.   Whilst he did spend some time languishing at Her Majesty's leisure, he was completely absolved of his sin.  Why? Because he went to confession and his family agreed to sign over their house (and all firstborn sons for the next millenia) to the Church.
It goes something like this:
One child handed to the Church = 15 hours of prayer;
15 hours of prayer = 5 days less in Purgatory.
It's rather an expensive exercise, considering Purgatory is where you stay for infinity unless someone prays you out of it. Obviously priest prayers are more effective than the prayers of parishoners.
It's a bit like clerical prostitution, but more delicately referred to as simony (buying or selling ecclesiastical preferments) and indulgences.
This is precisely why I choke on communion bread and morph into a Wolverine whenever someone mentions the words, Catholic, priest, nun, convent, manse, rosary, church, mass, Virgin Mary, virgin birth, immaculate conception and peace-be-with-you.
The only time I genuflect is at the gym facing Madam Lash.
Not that I'm bitter.........about the 12 years I spent locked in a convent with hirsute nuns and having to attend mass twice a week.I just have a bit of a tic.
And I'm sexually attracted to paperclips.


Anyhooo, in other news.....
Anyone who knows me will know that my all-time favorite book is the Bible (I said that in case God is reading and She may reconsider banishing me to Hell) and my second most favorite, despite the fact I can't spel, is the Macquarie Dictionary.  So from now on we are going to have......drum rolll.......

Word of the Day
(and a personal favorite)
Diamantiferous: adj. containing diamonds.

Now, I want you to all go away and use this word at least once today.  My example will be:
"Humphrey, you may shower me with gifts, so long as they are diamantiferous."

You may choose something completely different like:
"Oh look, junior has done something diamantiferous in his nappy."

Or if you are at an office meeting you can say:
"What a diamantiferous idea!"
Everyone will buy you drinks after work because you're super intelligent because you use big words AND know what they mean AND your boss will be so impressed you'll probably get a raise.


**I might have made that up.

Next Week:  A post about Atheism and why I adhere to the principles of it if it suits me.

Wrinkle Cream, Whistle-Blowers and The Global Conspiracy

(Written from a cellar somewhere beneath Mexico City)



Estee Lauder, clad in a black leather catsuit with artillery accessories, is stalking me.

It all began when, armed with a half-used tub of face cream, I approached the cosmetics counter at the local chemist.

Me: I'd like a refund please.

Audrey (the single neuroned checkout girl): What was your problem with the cream?

Me : It doesn't work.
   
Audrey: You feel that your skin isn't hydrated or ....?

Me: It. Doesn't. Work.

Audrey:  How hasn't it worked for you?

Me:    I don't look anything like Halle Berry.  

Audrey:  This cream won't make you look like Halle Berry.

Me:   Look at the poster there......Halle Berry....and this cream!  It's false advertising. It's misleading in the extreme.

Audrey: You're not black.

Me: Are you insulting me?

Audrey: I'm just saying, Halle Berry is black and you're not.  You're not even tall.

Me: What? So this cream is meant to make me tall as well?

Audrey: I don't think so.

Me: Oh, so not only are you racist you're heightist too are you?? This is UNBELIEVABLE.  So this cream should, theoretically, have turned me from a albino dwarf into a tall black goddess.  FAILURE on all counts Au-dray.

Audrey: I'll just get the manager.

Me: Damn right you will young lady. You'd better get the franchise CEO too sweetheart 'cause heads are going to topple here.

Chemist man who looks like a dentist: What can I do for you madam, a problem with your face cream?

Me: Err YEAH! (pointing to picture of Halle Berry holding face cream)  Do you see any rememblance here?

Chemist man who looks like a dentist: "Umm. No, but......"

Me: Let's just be clear on one thing here...do the words "CLASS ACTION" have any resonance with you?

Chemist man who looks like a dentist: *?*

Audrey: Perhaps you'd like to try this cream.....it's a great seller?

Me: That one with Heidi Klum? Do you think I'm stupid or something?

Chemist dentist and Audrey:  *pretend to tidy shelves*

Me: I'm sorry, but a simple refund just won't cut it any more. I'm sure you understand the negative ramifications for cosmetic companies and corner chemists like you on a GLOBAL scale. I could blow this scam WIDE open.  However...perhaps we could come to some kind of arrangement?

Chemist dentist: Arrangement?

Me:: I'm a reasonable individual Mr Chemden........seven hundred thou.....and I'll go away.

Chemden: Audrey call security.

The police weren't very polite either. I mean, here I was, handing them a global crime syndicate on a platter - which is more or less like me giving them extra stripes on their jackets and  fancy titles like Detective Senior Chief Constable Inspector Intendent - and they were RUDE to me.
(I didn't bite the security man that hard....big pansy).

Then I realised.
They were all in on it!
How could have I been so stupid??

I called Humphrey from the stop-over in Hong Kong.

Humphrey: You're WHAT?

Me: If anyone in black clothes, reflector aviators and a black Hummer comes to the door YOU DON"T KNOW ME. Ok?

Humphrey: You're kidding right?

Me: I'm serious Humphrey, pack the children up and RUN.

Humphrey: Have you been taking your medication?

Me: I've gotta go.  They've probably bugged your phone.

And that's how I came to be hiding beneath a laundromat in Mexico City.

Apparently It Is Illegal to Sell Your Children.

Aforementioned child has been withdrawn from sale.
Aforementioned child withdrew self from sale.
Aforementioned child has gone..........to join the circus*.
I'm just quickly cleaning the house before social services arrive, with the police.



*I'm so relieved. If he had decided to join those people who travel around with show rides I would have been devastated.

For Sale!

One naughty boy.
Rarely does as told.
Will consider swap (subject to behavioural testing).
Cheap.  In fact, we'll pay YOU.

Hiding With Hermits (or...a short break in transmission)

From page 79 of the Turkish Bugle.

ANKARA, Thursday:  Fans who reported Australian stupendistar SpoiledCharlotte missing in action will be relieved to know the Blog Goddess is alive.
Ms Charlotte is currently residing in a hollowed-out tree somewhere near Kasaba.  Whilst the Australian High Commission claims Ms Charlotte entered Turkey of her own accord it is believed that a flock of hairless hermits are now holding her hostage.
Mrs Charlotte's husband, Humphrey, has refused to pay the $37 ransom.
"I refuse to dignify the demands of terrorists," Mr Humphrey said.
The Hermits claim Ms Charlotte has offered her husband in return for her freedom.
"He's a great mule," Ms Charlotte allegedly said "and he doesn't eat much".

The Death of Fat Club and The Fight For World Domination.

The weeds have had to come out of mothballs.  There has been a death, a death mourned by chubsters and used-to-be-chubsters throughout my district - and possibly The World!
The Death of Fat Club (referred to hereonin as The Passing).
I have not written of this earlier because I'm still fragile (brittle even) from the loss.  It's not so much the loss as the suddeness of it, the sheer unexpectedness, that has left us shocked, bewildered and aimlessly wandering the aisles of Woolworths.
Thursday night weigh-in's at the yacht club will be no more.
Fat Club Weight Watchers (boooooo-hissssssss) in its infinite wisdom has decided to cease operating our club because our leader resigned and "no-one else wants to be leader."  I know for a fact that this is false.  There were two individuals prepared to stand up for the position.
As you know, dear reader, SpoiledCharlotte loves explanations, especially reasonable ones so......

There is only one reasonable explanation:

Our dinky little club was not aiding Weight Watcher's toward its ultimate goal of World Domination.

Somewhere in America sits a fat man on one of those really expensive leather office chairs stroking a fat furry cat with his fat bejewelled fingers.  The man's name is.....Claude...yes, that sounds right....and he has a patch over his left eye (but that doesn't matter because no one ever sees his face - his back is always to the audience).  Claude is the undisputed, omnipotent, meglamanic, diabetic Big Kahuna Ruler of Weight Watchers.....and The World!

You always thought Barack Obama said "Yes We Can!" didn't you?  Nope.  It was Claude.
Sub-prime mortgage crisis and resultant global financal fiasco?........Claude.
Watergate?  Claude.
Camillagate? Claude.
Cuban Missile Crisis? Claude.
Osama Bin Laden?  Claude's lovechild!
The drought of 1890? Yep, Claude.

He is everywhere.  Claude actually created hydrogenated oils so that the world would become fat and then pay him to lose weight.  How?
Fat Club Weight Watchers was Claude's piece de resistance.  Via closed circuit TV cameras around the globe Claude watches, rubbing his hands together, as chubsters are herded like cattle toward scales and self-loathing.
And he didn't stop there.  In order to be an all pervasive presence in our homes Claude came up with the  Ab Cruncher TV ads.

But Claude is not finished, yet.
Claude's Global Emporium will only be complete when he has a deserving woman by his side.  A woman who will go forth and propagate future Claudesters,  a woman who also strives for World Domination.
There is only one woman for the job:
Oprah.

So next time you see an ad for Kate Morgan, Jenny Craig, Fat Club, Thigh Master, Ab Cruncher, Butt Blaster or KFC just remember.......Claude is watching you.
Oh, and don't think that a dose of pseudo psychiatry is going to help either;
Dr Phil is Claude's brother.

Buxom Swedish Hitchhikers, Liberace and the Tax Man.

Tis raining and one is stuck inside doing nice things for one's husband.
Whilst it would be nice to be doing nice things to one's husband, one is in fact doing the BAS statement so that the nasty Tax Man doesn't send husband to the Gulag.
Actually Humphrey has been behaving in a disconcertingly husband-like manner lately.  My enjoyment of his new-consideratenessedness is marred only by the uneasy feeling that the earth may in fact have shifted off it's axis or the someone has discovered that Liberace actually had a wife and six children in Idaho.
I've been taking some time off from my usual occupations (curing cancer, perfecting the hydrogen engine and learning several ancient Arabic languages) so this has left me with time to contemplate my navel and wonder why Humphrey would suddenly be so nice to me.
There are a number of possibilities:

1. He is dying.
2. A buxom Swedish hitchiker became lost on her journey to Alice Springs, wandered into our backyard and is currently acquainting herself with my kitchen, clothes and bed (or Humphrey has her chained naked in the cellar).
3.Humphrey has won Lotto and is waiting for his visa application to Honduras to come through.
4. He has hatched a cunning plan to murder me and dispose of my battered body in the local meatwork's sausage machine.....and he will never be caught.
5.He is planning to join the Hare Krishnas.
6.He has discovered that sheep are not that bad after all, especially Mary, the one with the pretty eyelashes and comely backside......and they are running away together......to Honduras.....with the hitchiker.....and all that money!!!
7. He is dying.
8. He has become a close friend of Mr Marijuana.
9. He has discovered that he is actually God and being such a chick magnet his Messiahness has attracted a legion of devotees and he now has a harem, of Swedish hitchhikers.......and sheep.
10. There is no ten but it seemed awkward to stop at nine and ten is such a nice round number.

I may not have covered all bases here folks, so if you can think of any other reasons my husband might actually be being nice to me, please, let me know.
Oh, and Humphrey, if I do actually find blonde hairs (or wool) on my pillow it will be closely followed by the strong odour of gun-powder and a visit to the sausage factory.

Today's post has been bought to you by the Letters P, M and S.

NEWSFLASH!!! Fat Club Does It's Bloody Job

....and in breaking news, SpoiledCharotte is down 6kg. Yes folks, thats six kilograms. More in the full bulletin at seven.....

SpoiledCharlotte Gets Arrested....Well Almost....It Could Have Happened....

.....if we had the Stasi.
My crime?  Exaggeration in my last post.
I'm not sure you noticed, but I thought I'd better clarify.
I DID NOT steal Stephen Hawkings wheelchair.

Madam Lash, Stephen Hawking's Wheelchair and How I Became a Gimp.

Today's post is being written via Stephen Hawking's wheelchair.
Not his actual chair, but one very much like it.  One that you nudge a ball on a stick with your knuckle and it goes forwards, backwards and calculates the distance to the nearest binary stars.
Because I have limited use of my fingers I'm using one of those disabled type-writer thingies where you just have to look at the letter on the keyboard and it types for you.

When I woke up this morning the only thing I could move were my eyes.  Blurry images...bright lights... disinfectant and masked men hovering over me with syringes of morphine.  There was also a strange noise.....kind of a cross between a howling dog and a chainsaw cutting metal pipes....it was....over.....there....but strangely....so close.
PAIN...oh the ow ow ow ow oooowwwwwwwww  PAAAAAIIIIINNNNNNN!!! Then an urgent voice....
"We're losing her Dr McDreamy....quick.....paddles. STAND CLEAR!"
PwhoooomPH!
Metal. Needle. Squirt. Jab.
All better now.

It was all the fault of Madam Lash.
Remember I was telling you about the 60-year-old circuit instructor who cracks walnuts with her butt?
Yeah, well when said to her; "I compare thee to sadistic serial killing Megatron on crack," I was being nice.
This woman is The AntiChrist.
Ol' IronThighs caught me just as I rolled from an ab crunching machine and curled into the foetal position sucking my thumb.
"WhaddayathinkthisisaFRIGGINPICNIC?Getupandgetyourbuttonthatlatdrawdown.NOW!!"
I wimpered and complied, lest she should use on me that cat-o-nine-tails she swats flys with.
(Me good English language first.)
For someone who should be crippled with thinning bones, dicky hips and arthritic fingers she is remarkably, nay spookily, bouncy and able to do complex arm movements whilst star-jumping.
It's just not natural! The only reasonable explaination is that she drinks the blood of  baby pandas, injects sheep hormones and eats placentas during the summer solstice.

At the end of the class during Vladivostockovian Yoga (designed to tangle even the most adept contortionist) Madam Lash looked at me (I swear her pupils were GLOWING RED) and said "So, Charlotte, how did you find your class."
"Me, good......beetroot...lung...puff.....ambulance," was the best I could muster.

Somehow I managed to slither, jellified, to my car.  Once home I collapsed onto my bed and asked the dog to dial 000.

Madam Lash and I meet again tomorrow.  I'm quivering with fear already. Every muscle is protesting.....begging for a reprieve.  I've developed a twitch in my right eye.

Perhaps I have died.  And gone to hell.

I've got a 12 month membership.

Feeelin' da burrrrn!.

I'm afraid I am unable to post today as I am crippled with pain.
After an absence of 20 years the gym and I have become reacquainted.
Gym kicked my butt tonight.  Actually it was more than that.
In fact I think I am dying.
But don't worry.  I'll just lay here wrapped in one of those thermal blankies rocking and quivering in the corner.  In the foetal position.  It is possible I may never recover.  I am certain that this is fatal.
The person who did my workout schedule is a 60-year-old wisp of helium who can benchpress 150kg. She's a dynamo.

My will is in the sideboard.
If you were expecting an inheritance because you were nice to me once......
Everything goes to the cat's home.
Leave me alone and let me wallow.
Or perhaps you'd like to come over and rub deep heat into my ........ sore flab.
Apologies for being exceedingly un-funny today.  Expect worse tomorrow.
If I'm not dead.

To Err is You Man

Received an email from a reader today who has found himself in a slight pickle. His conundrum is quite common and touches on the all-too-common fragility of the human ego.  
Whilst I am no expert, or agony aunt, I can't resist offering a hand (particularly to a faithful reader).
His letter, paraphrased with his permission, was along these lines:

Dear Charlotte
I desperately want to right a wrong but all my attempts have been ignored.  I'm in a pretty bad place right now because I hate to think this person dislikes me so intensely that they have completely cut me out of their life....even cyberlife.  I just feel crappy and need some help accepting that our relationship is over.
Thanks in anticipation.
Toto

Achh  nothing like a meaty crisis to get me salivating.
Here's the response:

Dear Toto,
It's an interesting question actually.
I too have had a similar experience.  Though in my case the person concerned is a pathologically narcissistic, antagonistic and vitriolic turd with no insight into his/her own shortcomings.  However, we are not here to discuss oxygen-wastage.
It is a pathetic human trait that we all want to be liked....NEED to feel liked. Unfortunately for most of us a degree of our self-esteem is determined by postive reflections of ourselves from other people.  If we detect an unpleasant reflection we get all paranoid and suddenly we feel like our friends never call us any more (when in fact they're calling you just as frequently as usual).
I have no idea about whom you speak or the circumstances surrounding your falling-out.
It might help to first ask yourself WHY you want to contact this person. Is it REALLY because you want THAT person to feel better, or is it about YOU feeling better? Are you wracked with guilt?  Is it because perhaps you really can't accept the notion that someone doesn't like you?
Perhaps this person doesn't want to go picking scabs off of emotional wounds.  They may have moved on.
On the other hand he/she may be a complete prick and if that's the case do you really want a reunion?  Do you care what a toe-rag thinks of you?
  You're no orphan you know.  Sometimes people just don't like us and don't require a reason for it. Maybe they met you when they were premenstral.  Perhaps they misinterpreted something you said and threw themselves into a huffy over it.  Perhaps you looked at their cat the wrong way.  Who knows, people are just weird.  One thing you can be sure of though is the fact that this person's flagrant display of ignorance reflects badly on them, not you.  (Unless of course you slept their their husband/wife, in which case I'm not talking to you any more either).
Belle told me a great method she has of removing toxic people from her life.
She said: "Picture the person stuck in a huge bubble.  You can't hear their ranting and raving or banging to get out.  Now smile and gently blow on the bubble till is starts to float away.  Up, up, up goes the bubble, into the stratosphere, into space and, hopefully, right into a black hole."
Works for me.
XXXX

*Disclaimer:  Advice in the column is of a general, completely unqualified and some would say spurious nature and does not replace the recommended individual advice supplied by licensed practitioners. 

Tea with Mr Pickwick

It's time to come clean. There is another man in my life.
I take him to my bed each night. 
Frankly, if I could I'd rip off  his manties and molest him amid his manuscripts thrice daily.
Humphrey appears unconcerned, despite the fact that this affair has been raging for many years.  He even lets Charles sleep with us - provided I turn the off the light after an hour or so.  I believe I'll remain besotted for many years to come, despite Charles's advanced age.  He sets my heart a flutter with his turn of phrase,  into a swoon with his caustic wit, I sweat to a lather at his sense of social justice  and quiver at his marvellous understanding of human nature.
Nothing will e'er come between us Charles. I remain your most devoted and humble servant.

Read an article the other day and the interviewee declared that if she could invite anyone to dinner the guest list would include P.Diddy, Nelson Mandela, Bono and Britney Spears.  Could you imagine the scene?
Nelson would sit there benevolently smiling and occasionally offering pearls of wisdom. Bono would be on his mobile brokering some kind of peace accord between Palestine and Israel. PDiddy would be preening and swatting away groupies and Britney would be like....ah...."haven't I seen you guys somewhere before??"

Me? 
I'd just invite Charles Dickens.  Champagne, candelight, Charles and me.  I would happily listen for hours as he lambasted the judiciary, raged against the class system and fed me tidbits of his genius on a heavy silver fork. sigh.
Shakespeare would come a close second, but I'd have trouble understanding his RRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrollling accent.  Besides, he'd probably sniff and look down his nose at a humble wench like me.

I confess to be in utter awe of these masterful men.  Perhaps it is that rare ability to distill what it is that makes us human into a few well-placed words and to conjure scenes with a tiny phrase that separates the genius wordsmith from the literary hack.  Of course there are some fabulous contemporary writers too.  Anna Funder, Margaret Atwood, Robert Hughes, Frank McCourt (bless him), Tim Winton and Peter Carey to name but a few.  Robert Hughes's Fatal Shore was exceptional, in my humble opinion, because (among other things) he expressed so well the reasons our indigenous people appear so apathetic about many things, including self-determination.

Hopefully I haven't bored you all to death with my little missive today, but I have been warned that too much talk of wobbly thighs, fashion and morning breath may alienate my Blogland boyfriends (sorry Bushtripper, please don't leave me!!).  I shall swot up on carburettas (?), limited slip differentials and aerodynamics for a future blog.

Pray, I must leave dear friends,  for the time has come for my bodice to be torn in preparation for a ravishing by Charlie's luscious loquaciousness.........

Remember the Daze

Having a bit of a chuckle this morning as Thing 1 was getting all vain about his hair.  He wants to do the whole Justin Bieber (whatever) thing but it ends up looking more Ronnie Woods on a bad day.  Poor mite.  It doesn't help that he has inherited the ol' triple cowlick that has been passed down through our family since Moses was a boy.

Popular culture is such as regular and sometimes uninvited guest at our psychic dinner table.  When I was a hot chick groovin' on dancefloors and french kissing frogs (way back before the combustion engine) I channelled the whole Eurythmics/Annie Lennox thing.  Remember the peroxided short-back-and-sides, twelve-tone eyeshadow (with highlighter), eyeliner, mascara and glossy red lips and no less than three earrings in the left ear? (Not the right ear 'cause that meant you were gay).  Now, put that glittery goddess of gorgeousness into black leggin's, black baggy singlet top with a fat belt cinched at the waist. Wait! There's more....this vision of Venus strutted around in stiletto-heeled black leather studded boots!   Yes, I looked like a......like a.... drag queen!!!! 'Cept I thought I was Annie Lennox, or Annie Lennox spliced with Madonna.
In actual fact I probably looked like Marcel Marceau's understudy.
Looking back I wonder just how the hell I struck a pose in the mirror thinking "YO, HOT MAMA!!"

Not long before the albino skinhead look there was the "natural eyebrow" phase.  You know, Brooke Shields cavorting naked in a pair of eyebrows for Endless Love, or Gilligan's Island or whatever it was?  That was the end of an era for brow-beauticians and tweezer artisans.  However it did mark that illustrious period in history when optometrists  rose above the plebian masses - thanks to waiting rooms full of wool-blind patients.  Gawd the eighties were hideous.  And just when you thought it was safe to venture out they introduce bubble skirts again.  For The Love of God!!! A praying mantis would be hard pushed to look slim in a bubble skirt.  Shoulder pads come an ugly close second.  Lets not go there.

A pair of Jimmy Choos a fashion doyenne does not make.  As anyone who has seen me browsing the aisles of the local supermarket can attest, I am no fashionista.  Yes, I agree, I could put in a little more effort to affect more Audrey Hepburn and less Fat Boy Slim, but I refuse to be a fashion victim.  Sadly, we all are.  We have to be, by default, otherwise we'd be walking around in fig leaves.
We are at the complete mercy of those nasty little stick insects perched on their Philippe Stark ghost chairs inside a glassy tower somewhere in Milan.  That's where stick insects from around the world congregate each season for a mating session that results in the following season's "LOOK".  I'm sure they snigger behind their mandibles as they piece together the toothfloss that will next season's "must have."
"Kate Moss will look fah-bulous in this dah-link," they crow.
And so too will the rest of us....in the dark, with sunglasses on, and if you squint a bit.

My dear mother has recently lost a bit of weight.  Quite a lot really, probably in the realm of one water buffalo and a herd of wildebeast.  Anyway, she has gone from a woman who would occasionally point an accusatory talon and spit at the  Who-Wore-What Oscar's post mortem, to a woman who will coo about how fabulous next season's "nude" is or how "edgy" Natalie Portman has become.
She has also spent my inheritance on new clothes.

Perhaps what it comes down to is being comfortable in your own skin.  I will never be comfortable pushing a shopping trolley whilst clad in a leopard-print leotard whereas I'm sure some of you are perfectly happy exactly the way you are.  And venture out......

in a fig leaf.

Good luck to you!

Blame the Brain

Hang on a moment whilst I wrestle with my coat of angst and big fat shoes of DIS-AH-POINT-MENT!!!!

Went to Fat Club last night for the sacrificial weigh-in and found I had actually GAINED. yup.
A whole whumping great 100gms.  Or should I say 100 gms.  Yes folks, the 'ol point one of a kilo.
I'm hoping the weigh-in lady won't press charges (I did give her some frozen peas for her eye).

I knew I should have exfoliated, de-foliated and excreted before the meeting.

Oh well.  Once I finish wallowing in this vat of double choc-chip cookie dough heart-attack-in-a-box IceCream I'll be hauling this lumbering arse onto the treadmill daily until next weigh-in (and hopefully dodge a ride in a paddy-wagon).  I was kidding about the IceCream. Currently there is a stand-off between us.  My husband caught me late one night....by the flickering light of the refrigerator..... "Put DOWN the icecream and step AWAY from the refrigerator !  Easy....eaaaassyyy.... Nice an' slow......put it DOWN!!"

Amazing he still wants to shag me after that.

IceCream and I still talk,  but something has changed between us.

Me: "It's not you, it's me."
IceCream: "I know you still want me."
Me: "Please, don't make this any harder than it already is."
IceCream: "Are you BREAKING UP with me?"
Me: "I'd still like to be friends, but just not see so much of each other."
IceCream (sneering): "You'll be back."

On  a more positive front I've lost between 1.5 and 2.5cm from various geographical points on my porcine frame.

Later....

A couple of nights ago I had the misfortune to channel surf into The Biggest Loser.  I have seen previous series so no, I don't live under a rock, but before I never found it so deeply offensive.  The entire show is built on HUMILIATION.  You can bet your socks that the programmers didn't sit around a conference table brainstorming how they could single-handedly make Australia take stock of the collective girth and halt the looming diabetes pandemic.  No, those weasles (who probably have degrees in psychology) sat around the table guffawing and indulging in a bit of self-congratulatory back-slapping because they knew that they had a top-rating idea. 

Weasle 1:  "So guys, here's the thing.....We get as many grotesquely fat bastards as we can,  put them all in Rose Hancock-Porteous-Whatever's house, starve them and make them flog the shit out of themselves....in    front of cameras...whaddaya reckon?"
Big Weasle: "I think you might be onto something there Virgil".
Weasle 2: "Yeah. And we can get some bad-assed fattist gym freaks, along with an ex-SAS soldier dressed in tatts and maybe throw in a mercenary or two to humiliate the crap out of the fat fuggers....in front of the camera."
Weasle 1: "Yeeeeeaaahhhh....and then for the big finale those who haven't lost enough weight will be thrown into the Swan River and have to swim for their lives whilst the mercenary, aboard a navy frigate, takes potshots at them with an uzi."
Big Weasle: "Now that's just taking it too far Virgil.  I don't think they use uzi's any more."

Ah yes.  It's a winning formula.  Advertisers get all cannibalistic in their fight for thirty-seconds during BL ad-breaks. We LOVE to watch other people suffering because it makes our own pathetic and uninspiring little lives seem somehow - better.
We snuggle back into the couch and say; "Jeeze, get a load of the gut on that fat geezer sweating buckets trying to haul an army tank along the beach!" whilst we smugly pulpate our considerably smaller muffin-tops.
Our viewing tastes have decomposed to this point.
So we are left to ask ourselves what sort of people allow themselves  - or actively pursue - the opportunity to be demoralised and humiliated in front of hundreds of thousands of people?  By my reckoning there would be two types:  on the left, vapid attention-seeking morons and on the right truly desperate people who've tried everything to lose weight except wiring their jaws shut.

That's actually quite a nice segue .......

Some people just can't budge the pudge.

Apparently it's true.  No matter how hard they try some poor buggers just can't lose the lard.
Now I don't claim to be an expert (during my school days physics and chem were noises you made whilst vomiting) but surely energy in (food) < energy out (exercise)  = weight loss.  Simple right?
So what is it then?  Blame the brain.  Well someone's gotta take responsibility.  The fact is most of we fatties suffer from consumption amnesia and don't keep track of what we put between our lips.
Bit of left-over lasagne here, corner of toast there plus a lick of little Johnny's ice cream and voila- say hello to an extra chin.  But you would SWEAR that you only ate your usual cereal, sandwich and chops that day.
 Consumption amnesia - coming to grumblng stomach near you!
I guess the key here is to be mindful of our eating 'cause those little tidbits all add up.

Another obstacle in the minefield of fatbusting is eating when we're not necessarily hungry.  Ah yes, the hoary old chestnut of emotional eating.  Actually  I own the patent on that.  You know, when you sit down to a lovely little scoop of IceCream and end up eating 2 litres, an entire loaf of bread with a round of camenbert, a flock of turkeys and a cranberry bush  (actually I haven't done that, but it sounds ok)?  You just can't fill the void...you feel empty and end up making love to bath tub of butter chicken....and still feel empty. 
Perhaps what we need to do here is identify the need that is not being met, usually a psychological need, and address it.  You may need to get in the big guns because a chinwag over a coffee may not cut the mustard. (Cliche Queen!).

OK wakey wakey!!  I'm off the soapbox now....no more pontificating... I''m starting to bore myself now.

Off to feed the hoards with loaves and fishes (tee hee)!

Have Blog, Am Narcissist

That little pearl came from my mother.

That sentence bothers me, on a very deep level.  Nobody wants to be tarred and feathered with the nasty ol' narcissist brush.  Hopefully those who know me (and love me anyway) recognise that I'm way too sad, pathetic and insecure to fall in love  with my own reflection in the murky pool of life.

However, in thinking about life, love and lard I've come to the conclusion that all of us are blundering (or thundering depending on poundage) through this journey so why not share? Hell, it may even make you, dear reader, feel better - knowing that there is someone out there who is more neurotic-paranoid-insecure-fatter-and-clueless than you. 

In my typically verbose manner, what I'm trying to say is this is not going to exclusively be an whiny weight-loss blog where I walk to the mailbox once a week, keep hydrated with 3 litres of Coke a day, subsist on the dodgy end of the food pyramid  then whinge about the scales moving in the wrong direction. 
No sireeeee, this blog is going to be about LOVE, LIFE AND THE AUSTRALIAN WAY (hear the fanfare, those angels trumpetting).  Yes, my dear surrogate psychiatrists, you'll hear it all as I meander through motherhood, fight flab, occasionally want to smother my husband and sell my children on e-bay, and sometimes get pouty about the scales.

In the interests of being transparent I will reveal that I am the mother of two Sprites, hereafter referred to as such or as Thing 1 and Thing 2, depending on their level of compliance on the given day.
Husband will remain mute, as all husbands should, and will be referred to hereafter as Humphrey (only Australian residents will appreciate this. Humphrey Bear was a mute children's television character).
Husband is completely adorable and I love him to pieces,  but I reserve the right to indulge in his character assassination and he will have no right of reply. (After all, he is mute).

You will also meet some of my gorgeous friends.  The best of whom are Maggie and Belle (names changed to protect the wicked). Belle is actually my sister, but really my cousin - don't worry it's complicated.  She's the only person in the world who can tell me I'm being a stupid cow and I won't cry (though she'll more than likely receive a bruise).  Maggie is beautiful, inside and out, is an amazing mother, fabulous wife and Upstanding Member of the Community.  I hate her. Anyway, you'll meet them along the way.
Family-wise you'll meet Ingrid, my sister.  She's sassy, gorgeous and appears to have inherited any of the few brain cells that were lurking in the family gene pool.  She reserves the right to insult, lambast and call me a moron without fear of retribution (she doesn't know what I do to her coffee though, but that's another story).

Me? Well I'm five eleven, athletic and gorgeous with an IQ of 180 ..... oh sorry, that was a figment of my imagination.  I am a 30-something (shuddup, I'm going backwards now ok?) ex journalist/broadcaster/chocolateseller/childprotectionworker/makerofjewellery/gyminstructor/check-outchick/stationhand  (not at the same time).  I love writing and hate ironing.  I'm  actually quite shy, but if I'm your friend I can be loud and obnoxious.  I'm great to have around in a crisis (CucumberCool, that's me).  I'm loyal and kind.  I look hideous in the morning and it's best not to talk to me before 10am and a strong coffee.  My aphodisiac is intelligence and wit. I am a voracious reader and the proud owner of  thousands of books.  If there are no books I'll read anything from cereal packets to number plates. The only time I will be incited to violence is if you hurt my children or forget to return one of my books. I can be fickle and bad-tempered.  I love to learn and loathe cooking.  I save grudges for a privileged few and don't let go of them easily.  People who don't talk proper-like rooooolly irritate me.  So basically I'm flawed.  Loveable, but flawed.

(Oh for the love of God, I've accidently pressed cntl + p and prematurely published this post. How the frig does THAT happen? Don't ask, I was looking for an asterix.)

So now I've done the basic introductions.......
Hey, you there! Yes you, with the lolling chin and drool dropping on the keyboard....WAKE UP.  The dull bits are done....moving on....oh shit look at the time.  I've got to clean up this sty. Jesus, someone might actually visit and not be able to find me amidst the detritus.

Later......

Back again. Actually the house wasn't in bad order. I'm leaning to loathe black and white chequerboard ceramic tiles.  They look sooooo stylish in the glossy magazines but they're just so freaking needy in the attention department. If I don't vacuum and wash them everyday they look unloved and downright grotty. And dog fur? Don't get me started. I think I may well have to vacuum the dog daily too.

Today whilst I was doing the daily treadmill I was pondering and interesting phenomenon.
(WARNING: I'm going to be making gross generalisations and sweeping statements, so if you're easily offended or just premenstral and argumentative, go and watch the shopping channel or something).
Now, where were me, oh yes, why is it that women are so damn hyper-critical of themselves and men can be so damned deluded about themselves?  This is clearly evidenced in the fact that perfectly lovely ladies with beautiful personalities are crippled with self-doubt (and even loathing) whilst fat, balding, middle-aged male fur balls in Speedos persist in polluting our beaches and espousing their general fabulousness to anyone daft enough to listen or too disabled to evacuate.  Perhaps it is a question of balance.  We women need to recognise our fabulousness (be it because we're empathic, intelligent or can make a mean curry) and accept our flaws (flabby thighs, morning breath and an inability to comprehend algebra).  Being a combination of all these things is what makes us interesting and individual and so NOT beige.  And we can work on the flabby thigh thing, and the algebra, but morning breath is a universal quantifyer.
And the budgie-smuggling guys? For God's sake, just get rid of them.  They don't look good on our Opposition Leader and they don't look good on you.  This is the one exception where More Is More.  Get some funky boardshorts.  And yes, your mother probably did tell you that you were a "gift from God" (we know who we are referring to here), but this is the real world. Your shit does stink and nobody wants to hear how fabulous you are from YOU. We know you probably are a pretty ok kind of guy, deep down, and it's great to have a degree of body confidence, but be realistic.  It's enough for us if you are kind, sensitive and funny.  In fact if you are kind, sensitive and funny a pendulous belly, furry shoulders and bald head are invisible to us. 
We will think you are adorable.

A Gift From God even.

But only in boardshorts.

Girl Sees Airship in Shop Window Reflection........

How does this sound?  Orange and celery diet.....all you can eat for two weeks and you'll drop 8kg (17lbs)? Or the grapefruit diet? No, I didn't like that one either...how about the replacement meal diet, sensible eating diet, lets-try-bulimia diet, anorexic diet and do-your-head-in diet?  Done them all? Same here.  By some miracle my family members survived my axe-weilding mania whilst I undertook some of these insane eating plans.

Some of these freaky-whoever-thought-of-them-should-be-burnt-at-the-stake plans actually worked.  Yeah, the weight can come off (in the case of the meal replacements) in giant slabs.  I literally ate "chocolate" and lemon pie for three months - not a natural food passed my lips.  It was for my sister's wedding.  She didn't want a porker for a matron of honour and I didn't want to be the circus tent slightly to the left in all the photos.  I lost 22kg (48lbs) and a good part of my frontal lobe. Problem was as soon as the ring was on the finger I experienced what can only be described as a desperate almost pathological hunger.  I ate for Australia - and south east Asia and most Pacific nations.

 A few gazillion calories and four dress sizes later this puffy-faced lard butt in the mirror was unrecognisable and HAD TO GO - preferably to another universe.  It wasn't all vanity.  Actually it wasn't vanity at all, it was a visit to the doctor a glucose tolerance test and an ecocardiograph to check whether I had  "suspected" heart disease.  Thankfully I have neither diabetes or heart disease, but it was enough to scare me pale.

Now for the really difficult bit.....I'm a little person, as in vertically challenged...a whole lot of  152cm or 5ft nothing.  My weight had ballooned to, ahem, 90kg (around 200 pounds for you non-metrics).  Good Lord. (Can't believe I'm actually putting that out into the ether where it will reside for ever and ever and ever and ev........)

I joined Weight Watchers. Actually I kind of fell into it when a friend, Sal,  asked if I would go with her one night and I wasn't quick enough to come of with a reasonable excuse.  Why not? I groaned.
Meeting time and Sal wasn't there to hold my hand over the threshold so I just walked in with a big smile on my face feeling like a sumo wrestler's bigger sister.   To me WW always had that kind of hand-holding, pretendy friendy, Amway-type evangelical air.  The leader would stand at the front espousing the joys of conversion whilst the parishioners clustered at her feet soaking up every syllable.  In this kind of environment my walls go up so quickly that air is lucky to escape. But thankfully I was so WRONG.
I was hooked (lined-and-sinkered) almost instantly.  There was no  pushy-pushy-smiley sales talk, it was just a bunch of women old and young who were weary from battling with the scales.
WW has come a looooooong way from the old days when, according to our leader, they actually used to have a "pig-pen" in the corner at meetings where people who were found to have gained weight were herded in disgrace.  If that wasn't bad enough they had to sing a song along the lines of  "I'm a Little Piggie".  I can see years of therapy and a psychiatrist's new Mercedes right there in that last sentence.

Anyhoo - WW has had somewhat of a renaissance in recent years.  This rebirth came in the form of the points system.....every food is allocated a number of points and every WWatcher is allocated a certain number of points per day.  (I make the point here that I never actually undertook the points plan, I've just researched it a little).  This points plan seemed fine, but I noticed that bloggers who were doing it kept going on about the "points friendly" caramel sundaes,chocolate bars and pasta cabonara they had found in the freezer section at their local supermarket.  The magazines advertised all his prepackaged, looks-and-tastes-like-it's-naughty stuff.  It occured to me that this was arse-about.  These people weren't learning to make the right and healthy choices they were making the same choices that made them fat but  in portion controlled versions.  As soon as they "stopped" WW they'd go back to same ol' eating habits and pork up again. (Don't argue with me here, I'm an expert!) Thankfully there is now the Pro-Points system (I think it's MyPoints in the UK and PointsPlus in the US).  This system focuses on fresh healthy eating.  Fruit and most veg have NO points so you can fill up on them.  Other foods have points based on not calorie and fat content, but protein, fibre and carbs.  I can't tell you how loudly the "ka-CHING" moment rang for me.

I'm a convert.

I'm also 4.5kg lighter (9.9lbs).

Stay tuned for weigh-in tomorrow night!

Charlotte.