I Once Had a Nightmare.....

Sometimes....no, wait...MOST of the time it would be prudent for me to keep my mouth shut....except:
When I think "Oh, it would be bad to have a flat tyre all the way out here..."  - BANG! dead tyre - a bazillion miles from anywhere, in temperatures that would melt lead, I'm wearing white linen and the wheel nuts are welded on.
or
When I'm driving way too fast through thick scrub and I think "Mmmm, possibly shouldn't be driving this fast in case a kangaroo jumps ou......"  - BANG! - a very unhappy/possibly mortally wounded furry animal who may have to be assisted into the hereafter by a furry-animal-loving-pacifist.
However, if I actually verbalise these thoughts to Humphrey or whoever else may be white-knuckling it with me they DON'T HAPPEN!
Except today.
One of our jillaroos drove into town, oestensibly for a medical check of  her infected wisdom teeth.  It is shearing time at Casa Humphrica, so of course jackaroos, musterers, yard staff and working dogs put their orders in whenever someone goes to town.  Whether its beer, tinned spaghetti, kibble or pipeline parts, there is always a list as long as your arm.
This jillaroo is a lovely soul. Intelligent, kind and a real worker, so I said "When you finish your doctor's appointment just come back here (to The Squat) and put your feet up - I'll do the shopping and fetching for the men," (God, I NEVER say that - ordinarily).
A couple of hours later my car's back axels are spraying sparks all over the road - but I've done the job.  Now all we have to do is load the cargo into her ute (or the pick-up for you northern Americans).
She backs up my slightly inclined driveway, hauls on the handbrake and jumps out to help me, talking about some person she knew in a former life whose car ended up on the other side of the road doing just this thing.
I laughed, thought "I hope those brakes work" and turned around saying "Yeah, worst nightmare if the brakes let go....."
I pick up a heavy box, turn around and .............where's the....
The ute is speeding down the drive, Jillaroo's legs are scissoring out of the passenger door and she's letting out little peeping screams....like a baby bird.
My hand flies to my mouth (I'm good in a crisis) as I watch the car cross the busy road and head straight for my neighbour's garage door.  Jillaroo deftly turns the steering wheel, turns the ute onto the side walk and it continues careening towards a stobie pole.  Her hand-pumping the brake pedal finally works and the ute comes to a halt.
I burst out laughing (I'm so good in a crisis).  The poor girl giggles hysterically in return and stutters...." I couldn't......get....a dent....in Todd's ....ute...."
Me: "That was the funniest thing I've ever seen!!!" ('cause I'm great and tactful in a crisis).
How that ute didn't plough straight into another car - or the neighbour's garage - is a miracle.
We thought it best to celebrate -
with a stiff tequila.

GroundhogDayGroundhogDayGroundhogDayGroundhogDayGroundHogDay

Sunday means pack up and haul ourselves back into town after a weekend of fun on the farm.
Meh.
For those of you not intimately acquainted, my husband Humphrey is a shepherd. 
He lives on a bit of a plot about ninety hundred miles from everywhere and tends his sheep.  The Things and I lived out there too until our youngest was diagnosed with autism and we decided that in the best interests of him not turning into a strange hermit during his teens it would be prudent to get him into school - where he can learn more bad habits and anti social behaviours from other children.
The plot is too far out of town to commute daily so we squat in a derelict cottage during the week and hitch rides home on any passing camel trains each Friday. 
Ninety percent of the time this arrangement works perfectly well.  The Things and I get to spend a bit of time with Humphrey, and Humphrey gets his bathrooms cleaned, his laundry done and enough mutton roasted to keep him in sandwiches for a week.  Most of the time I don't mind slapping around a bit of Jaysol and using a chisel to remove soap scum and man grease from the shower cubicle, but filthy toilets just. make. me. yeeeeesh.
How in the name of Sweet Baby Jesus this man manages to crud up two toilets in one week is a mystery and horror worthy of Hitchcock.   What to Expect When You're Expecting, the Post Toddler Years did not inform me that owning boys would make it necessary to don a hazchem suit in order to hose out the toilet every two days.
It has also come to my attention that since I moved out all manner of mammal and insect has moved in.
The back verandah has been chewed to the rafters by termites and mice are nesting in the ceiling insulation, behind the fridge, in the wall cavity and the laundry basket.   Poison and traps are terribly effective, but Humphrey needs to remember to remove the bloated carcasses (and no Humphrey, plugging in the AmbiPur an hour before I'm due home does not mask the odour of slimey, decomposing mouse corpse).
The timbers on the back verandah are lurching precariously into next week and the guttering is guttering in name only.  Humphrey doesn't seem to notice. Men just don't rate things like...oh I don't know....creative decor, secondary colours and having a rain-proof roof.
In fact if I suggested we leave the homestead and pitch a tent he would probably be perfectly happy, provided he could bring the satellite dish in order to watch the AFL grandfinals.
God love him.

Child Discipline From The Book of Revelations

Today the Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse rode into the lives of my children.
The Gates of Hell unleashed all kinds of ugly from about 8.30am - coincidentally the same time that I fell over a cricket bat artfully tossed across a family thoroughfare and impaled my knee on a Transformer.
Whilst I truly do want to be a Mum who makes their home into one great Montessori experience .... pffft!

You know that saying ... the one where boys always grow up to marry someone who reminds them of their Mother?  Well, if that's the case my boys are each going to bring home Big Hal the army drill sergeant.

Lately most exchanges between good self and progeny have been prefixed with;
"If I have to say it ONE MORE TIME....."
"ONNNE....TWOOOO......THR....THR....." (because by this time I've dived into a vat of moonshine and can't count past thr...)
"Where do dirty dishes live? No....not on the floor of the TV room...." (or under your bed, or next to the dog's bowl, or under the couch...)
or suffixed with....
"....right THAT'S IT!" (and they're thinking "oh yeah...that's WHAT???")
"...I'm telling your Father." (because I'm ineffectual).
"......Gahd...you kids drive me...CRAZYYYYYYY". (because I'm ineffectual and I like a bit of emotional blackmail).
or
"....you'll be the death of me."  (because I like conjuring my long dead Irish ancestors, and a bit of emotional blackmail).
All the while I'm actually fantasizing about lobbying for legal suffocation.
The fact is, sigh, I'm just sick to the gills with having to remind the Things to do/or not do the same things each and every day of the year.....
Just last week, cleaning under Thing One's bed, I found a dust bunny the size of a dugong, petrified chop bones and a quivering Viet Cong.

Each morning:
"Gruntley, have you done your homework?"
"Bratley, where are your shoes?"
"Have you made your beds yet?"
"Eat your breakfast..."
"Gruntley, have you done your homework?"
"Bratley, where are your shoes?"
"Have you made your beds yet?
"Eat your breakfast..."
Eventually this discourse degenerates into...
"Gruntley...HOMEWORK."
"Bratley...SHOES."
"BEDS!"
"BREAKFAST!"
And ultimately......
"HOMEWORKSHOESBEDSBREEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKFAAAAAAAAAST!!!

By this time I am quite dextrously banging my head on the kitchen wall and setting up an intravenous drip of vodka.
After I drop them at school I head to the post office, for stamps.
I think one to each forehead and no return address will do the trick.
Then I reconsider.....
Later in the evening, after I've tripped over more Lego and stubbed my toe on Thomas The Tank Engine I quickly browse through ebay....then type:
"Two boys....aged...."

Could You Give Me A Hand With The Spike In My Buttocks?

You know those big round cacti that look like spikey pumpkins?  Yeah, well Humphrey adopted one.  He calls it our "naughty" chair.   That's where I'm sitting.  Right now. For Conduct Unbecoming. You know, about my last post....the Smurfs and their reproductive organs
The words "juvenile", "delinquent",  "oh-my-God-what-if-Mum-reads-it", "limited-vocabulary", "humour-of-a-six-year-old-boy" and "lack of commonsense" made up most of our  his most recent exchange  monologue, so I stand sit chastised chastened. 
Apparently I'm a questionable role model to the Things and I need to "reconsider" my vernacular degeneration. Obviously I'm at risk of reverting back to my pond-slime type. (Damn O'Callaghan genes).
So I now kneel here before you....begging forgiveness and promising to never again use profane language gratuitously and/or in the same sentence as animated characters.
Before you start sending sympathy cards to my long-suffering husband......I know where you live.
"Whatwilltherelativesthink????"

Bet You've Never Been In a Smurf Vagina

It would seem that some of us (me) are destined never to grow up....to be Real Ladies.  I do try to have some decorum just like The Muminator taught me, at least in public, but unfortunately at the best of times my mental and emotional age is somewhere around, oh, I don't know.... about twelve.  Mix me with alcohol and there is a whole lot of three-year-old happening.  This might be amusing, if I was three. Of course I find myself hugely amusing, especially if I'm holding my third glass of champagne and drunken strawberries.  Others? Well, maybe not so much.
Case in point:  Had a bit of a girlie Christmas get-together a couple of nights ago at a lovely local establishment (their crispy-skinned salmon is to DIE for).  We had just quaffed the first in a long line of beverages and were making our way back to the dining room with the female owner of the establishment.  This journey involves a stroll down a hallway that takes the term wall-to-wall carpeting to a new and literal level. Bright red carpet blankets the floors and runs halfway up the walls.  The walls and (possibly) the ceiling are covered in electric blue carpet.
"Oh my God,' I exclaimed in my drunken extremely loud stage whisper, "This is like being in a giant VAGINA!"
My friend, who is equally as inept at speaking quietly, replied, "Yeah, a big SMURF vagina!!"
We fell about laughing - almost high-fiving our comedic genius.......until we saw the disapproval of our host. Ahem.
Friend (lets call her Gladys) and I were the first to arrive.  In the intimate dining room a long table festooned with Christmas decorations awaited us. 
It was then that I saw them.....
There, tucked away in the only remaining space was a tiny table, flanked by two diners.....two MALE diners. These two poor innocents had now idea that their worst dining nightmare was about to descend upon them.....a room stuffed to the gills with drunken women.  What do you call a group of women.....is it a "gaggle", no, that's geese......a flock? No.  Oh, I know....a BITCH ....a bitch of women.....hell yeah! But to these two man diners I'm sure we were simply a "nightmare" of women. 
Following the air-kissing (because we are so VERY Continental), and making approving clucking sounds about outfits (that shade of cerise just REALLY suits you) and so on the table began to fill.  I needed to bring out my ear trumpet because I just couldn't hear anything above the babble.  The man-diners, with expressions of abject terror, scurried away with their plates to eat....oh, I don't know, under the stairs or something....anything to be away from the squawks, squeals, snorts and gaggling of our private barnyard.
For me, an evening of lip-reading ensued and cemented my plans to learn sign language.
Conversation began intelligently enough....with politics: "Oh no, I just don't trust him, his eyes are too close together," and quickly degenerated to potty-mouth "Male flatulence is scientifically proven to be more olfactorily toxic because.....because....."
By the end of the night the quiet girl sitting next to me had left - because I think she was sick of my snorting and had to find an after-hours chiropractor due to my back-slapping her everytime I heard something funny.  We had solved the Global Financial Crisis with muffins (don't ask, I can't remember) and solved the mystery of Lady Gaga's popularity (haven't a CLUE).
Was kindly dropped home by Gladys' lovely husband at a terribly reasonable hour, only to find Humphrey in one of his coma-sleeps (from which he is usually only roused with an air-horn at three paces).  Fifteen minutes of me hammering the door-bell and swearing at the potplant finally woke the sleeping bear and had me sober enough to ...... I don't know.....embroider or something.
So that, my cherubs, is a typical night-out with the gals! (Not ladies).

The Calling

In the wee hours this morning I was brutally torn from my slumber by......The Calling....
"Muuuuuuuuuummmmmmm!"
I reach over to George Clooney's shirt and.......
"Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum!"
rip it open....buttons fly across the room..............
"MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUM!"
Oh my God, my child is being murdered!!!
Awake now....."What? Whatwhatwhatwhat?"
(this better be good 'cause I probably won't be able to channel George when I go back to sleep).
"Bratley is being sick......." (no, that's not his real name - except at three o'clock in the morning).
"Oh gross. Muuuuum, Bratley is being sick ALL OVER THE BEDROOM!!"
I stumble into the lair whereThing 1 and Thing 2 nest and am promptly slapped in the face with the acrid odour of vomit.  I switch on the light and then proceed to slip on masticated lamb chop and chocolate pudding.  Poor kid tried to make it to the bathroom, but got as far as swinging his legs over the edge of his bed.  It was a real Power Vomit.  We're talking splash marks on four walls and the window blinds.  I trapse into the kitchen to get the paper towel and an adequate vomit recepticle....leaving a trail of slimey germesticated vomitty footprints. 
"It's ok baby," I coo, "You can't help being sick.  Did you get it on your sheets?" (please god, not the sheets, I only changed them yesterday morning...nothing like having to change sheets at three in the morning with a shivery sick child forlornly watching.)
Sheets are clear, God bless the considerate invalid.
With lavender and eucalyptus oil liberally sprayed, mopped and high-pressure hosed throughout the room and Bratley proclaiming he felt "all better now" I shuffle back to bed to sleep.  With one eye open and ear tuned to flea farts.  George has vacated for the evening.
Perhaps he'll come back tomorrow.

Diamonds, Fat Farms and Financial Armageddon

For my up-and-coming 26th  birthday (ahem) I've asked Humphrey to send me to a fat farm. (No, nothing so altruistic as rendering tallow so that children in third world countries can have lamps by which to study at night) just a simple wire-the-jaw-shut-bootcamp type fat farm.  (Actually, whilst I was thinking along the lines of a tropical getaway full of well-oiled Norsemen and Bircher Museli Masterchefs, Humphrey was thinking more of the one-way-ticket-to-a-Pacific-atoll accompanied by a packet of protein bars).
Ah bless the Humphster he is a fiscally responsible individual (goddam tightarse).  Many of you more prudent readers are probably nodding in agreeance that Humphrey sensible surgically sewed his wallet shut (years ago) in preparation for the financial Armageddon I intend to wreak on it in the coming weeks.... coming up to Christmas and all.
Sitting at the dinner table the other day we were discussing what would be a good present for Things One and Two.  In their minds anything that doesn't involve books or underpants or education in any way shape or form is a good present.   In fact anything that is plastic, has lights, sabres, lasers, is able to fly, shoot or do homework is a good present.   So here lies my dilemma.  I pretty much leave my kids to their own devices throughout the year.  I might half-heartedly throw a cricket/basket/foot ball every day now and then or even pretend to be the Fat Controller to Thing Two's Thomas The Tank Engine regularly once or twice (actually I'm sure the boys secretly call me the Fat Controller all the time).....and I think I need to be more, you know, involved.  Two girlfriends of mine are probably the (angels singing and trumpetting fanfare) BEST MOTHERS OF ALL TIME - and I feel hopelessly inadequate in their immaculate homes watching them gently deal with whiney kids and set up face-painting and personal discos for their cherubs.  I just can't be fagged.  If my kids whine I snap at them and threaten to leave them in their room until cockroaches start to look appetising; if they say they're bored I tell them I'll give you bored now get your arses outside and kick a ball, catch a butterfly or something. So I'm a bad Mum.  Social services are probably on their way over right now.
(Actually I do feel slightly better since I met Sandra over at Absolutely Narcissism.  She is possibly my twin - apart from the fact she has ripped abs and is possibly the best blogger in all Christendom.  Sandra and I have similar attitudes to everything, except exercise, but that's another story.....head on over and give her a visit, http://www.absolutelynarcissism.co/  she pays the shyte out of her husband....just like me!).
Anyway ADHD girl, back on track.....oooh shiny thing....stop it!! Ok, Christmas presents.  The Responsible Parent in me wants to give them e.d.u.c.a.t.i.o.n.a.l. toys...you know things that will stimulate the correct hemispheres and have them chatting about quantum mechanics.  The Imbecile Parent wants to give them fun things that have lights, sabres, guns and shiny bits - because I'm such a shyte mother 90% of the time and get really impatient when they're reading and can't sound out the word r.a.b.b.i.t. after reading it six times on  previous pages.  I think we'll compromise and get them something like a ping-pong table - you know, sport, coordination blah blah.
So I asked Humphrey what he wanted, thinking he would look at me with a glint in his eye and say..."Just you baby, with a big satin ribbon around (what was) your waist".  But no.  I received the same reply as last year, and the year before that, and the year before that;
"Oh, just something chromey and tooley that has the word SnapOn embossed on it."
Oh.........silence.......I'm waiting for him to say "What do you want for Christmas my gorgeous love goddess?"....but instead I get.......silence......
I hate silence during conversations.....it forces me to blurt out things just to, you know, fill the void.......
"OK, what do I want for Christmas? Why thanks for asking Humphrey....."
Before I get to finish Humphrey sighs and in a completely defeated tone says, "I know, I know.....you want something I just can't afford..."
"We'll don't you want to know what it is?"
He just looks at me with huge puppy eyes like I'm about to beat him with my studded truncheon (again).
I just don't have the heart to do it to him so I just sigh and say, "Well, I guess I'm going to buy my own present again this year."
For crying out loud it's not like I unwrap a new house every Christmas, or even a new car......I would like that little forlorn boat that I see when I cross the bridge each morning.....not that I can sail.
I never claimed to be sensible.
Perhaps just a little trinket....a shiny little something....that rhymes with "triamond"