Zesty Mumma's Words

A life lived without passion is a life half lived

Archive for the tag “Humour”

25 Jun 2014

Not a Place for the Faint Hearted – The Boxing Day Sales.

The fallen lay defeated on the battlefield. Meer shells of humanity, unable to speak about the horrors they had faced. The retreat had begun early in the campaign and by 4.00pm the exodus had escalated to a stampede.  Only those with true stamina survived the melee.  This was a battle not  for the physically strong  but the mentally strong.

Yes I braved the boxing day sales, stepping over broken husbands strewn across the path as I entered the Plaza.  Why, why why do they allow themselves to be subjected to the torture. They’re not built like us, they don’t have the shopping gene. The noise, the lights, the million and one items to find and purchase, oh the pure confusion of it all.  Like little animals in the glare of a thousand headlights, their eyes dart back and forth in alarm, hearts racing, exhibiting the jerky, erratic movements only fear can cause. Can’t their carers see the pain they are in?

Lets face it the ability to shop is a very underrated skill, one that truly warrants deep analysis. If you think about what it takes to be successful at the Boxing Day sale you may be surprised at how significant this is for success in other areas of your life.

Firstly you definitely need stamina as I have previously mentioned. Also needed is ingenuity, there are any number of people out their tying to find that ultimate bargain just like you, so you have to get there first.  Concentration, now that is of the utmost importance, no distraction can be allowed. No screaming children or disgruntled husbands can sidetrack you from your mission.

Maybe this is where the education system has been failing society. Lets do away with geography (we’ve got Google earth now anyway) and social studies (Social media has done away with the need to meet face to face these days) and replace them with shopping studies.

Highly developed Shopping Genes may hold all the ingredients for all the worldly success anyone could want, stamina, ingenuity and concentration, what more could you need!

 

 

 

 

 

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22 Jun 2014

When Sushi Turns Bad

When Sushi Turns Bad

MY Kitchen meltdown. A seething mound of glutinous rice. the face of sushi gone wrong. I went to a cut price supermarket and bought cheap arborio rice. Then tried to cook the whole Kilo in one hit. I subsequently attempted to dry it out a bit by cooking it further. The mound seemed to keep growing. By the way that bowl is from a commercial rice cooker so it has a 6 litre capacity.

A sad comparison to the amazing photos that the talented foodies post

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18 Jun 2014
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What Do Women Want Today?

What do women want today, I am a woman and they totally confuse me sometimes so I have no idea how men cope?  Yesterday I heard about a marriage that had just ended. It is often a sad occurrence when this happens but particularly so in this case. To start with the couple had only been married for a year.  They must have at least thought there was a possibility that they could make a go of it when they decided to marry. You would hope it wasn’t a whim, right?

 

Now here is the main reason this case is so poignant, the groom had secretly planned and executed a second wedding to celebrate the anniversary of the first one.  The reason was simple, the couple married in a registry office and he wanted to give his bride the wedding he thought she deserved.

 

Really? I think he may be rethinking that opinion.

 

The bride thought she was being taken away for a beach weekend to celebrate her birthday. That fact alone makes me think there may be a bit of narcissism happening with this young lady. Meanwhile her husband had planned and booked a renewal of vows with an amazing ceremony at a spectacular winery, followed by a full reception for seventy guests. He had also invited and paid for a large number of the bride’s family to be flown in from outside Australia to attend.

By all accounts Saturday 17th May was a beautiful day for all who attended.

 

Obviously all except the bride cause barely a month later she is outta there.

 

Now I don’t presume to imagine that I can ever know what goes on in private but lets pull this a part.  Here is a couple who had only been married for a year and

a husband that tries to make his wife feel special when he can. On paper you would have to think they had a good chance to make it work if they both put in a little effort.

 

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14 Jun 2014

Where Do You Eat Your Meals, I Eat Mine at the Table

 

I eat my meals at the table; I know that is probably an unusual thing to do in the world we now live in.  I’m not talking about just my evening meal. I mean every meal. Breakfast, there I sit with my egg on toast and cup of coffee, Lunch, even at work and evening, I sit at the table. I just can’t do the sitting on the lounge with your meal in your lap. It’s just the way I was brought up, even when there is no one around to see it I still sit at a table.

 

You would think my children would do the same thing cause I bought them up to sit at a table when you eat, nope. I notice that nine times out of ten they are planted on the lounge when they eat.

 

My cat; however, is a different matter. Every rat, bird and lizard she ever catches is bought in the house and ends up under the kitchen table. I hear crutch, crutch and I look and sure enough there is the cat with her takeaway eating at the table. Then I have to scream and chase her out of the house.

 

Isn’t it ironic, when you try to train your kids to do something it is so hard. Then your cat gets it just by watching you, even if you don’t want them to. Sometimes you just can’t win.

 

 

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05 Jun 2014

Signs of Ageing No. 2 – Vanishing Car Keys

If Jimmy Barnes doing a Telstra Ad was my number 1 sign of getting old, I now have number 2.

Yesterday was a bad day, not going into detail but lets just move on. I parked my car under the carport, thinking for a brief moment that it would be terrible if I misplaced my key’s as then I wouldn’t be able to move it. That would mean Claire couldn’t get her car out and she couldn’t go to work.  I opened the door of my house with the keys and voilà, that’s the last I saw of them.

Not that I realised that it would be the last I saw them. This only happened about the time I wanted to move the car. That was about half an hour before I knew Claire would be wanting to leave.

As the panic set in I thankfully employed one the best aspects of maturity, ingenuity. I had actually angle the car so that even with a locked steering wheel the car would roll straight into the opened garage. So I knocked the car out of gear, took the hand break off and began pushing it toward the garage.  Just couldn’t get it over the last little bit of concrete to get it inside. I was really hoping that I could get the car all the way in before I had to admit why I had to move it manually.

Anyway, it’s raining today and my keys are nowhere to be seen. My little walk to work in the sunshine is not going to be quite as sunny as I had imagined.

Can’t wait for the next sign of aging, I’ll keep you posted.

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30 May 2014

First Sign of Ageing – Jimmy Barnes doing a Telsta Ad

Horror of horrors on the TV, Jimmy Barnes doing an ad for Telstra. I mean Jimmy Barnes – What Was He Thinking and do you know what the worst thing is, it makes me feel really old and I don’t like that at all. It’s just not rock n’ roll is it?

Where is his cheap wine and a three day growth? Maybe that’s the problem, the wine wasn’t that cheap anymore and manscaping costs a lot to accomplish these days. Why do these figures of our youth keep letting us down? When did he become respectable? Next he’ll be doing an album of classics with slick back hair and a tuxedo – Whoops he already did that.

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The days of me sitting on a huge speak beside the stage at a Cold Chisel concert may be long gone, but I don’t need to be reminded like this. What can I say it is just cruel!

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27 Sep 2013

Use Your Head or Loose It, Just Ask Anne Boleyn

What was the best time of your life? Most of us remember our teenage years with great fondness. Somehow we can easily dismiss the insecurities and uncertainties we felt at that time, instead remembering it as a golden age. A smorgasbord of choice, one of endless possibilities and unlimited opportunities.

 

Why do I bring this up, the “70’s Show” that’s why. Set in an era that I have to begrudgingly admit I remember well. I know that it’s highly exaggerated and of course they are much more confident than most normal teenagers ever could be but I just can’t help liking it. As a social commentary on the time it’s probably not the first point of reference. However, I recently watched an old episode that contained a much deeper and age defying truth than expected.

 

In that particular episode we see Jackie upset because Kelso has ruined her birthday party by turning it into a drunken teenage binge instead of the sophisticated dinner party she had planned. When quizzed about her vision for the future she admits that in her dream she saw Kelso as a witty, successful business man in a dinner suit entertaining their equally successful rich and urbane friends. My first response to that revelation was “has she never met her boyfriend”.

 

Then I thought about the truth of how the female brain works. When we look at something we don’t see the reality of what it is, we see the image of what we think it could be. This quality can be a blessing and a curse at the same time. It’s this quality that helps you look at the drawing your four year old son has done on the lounge room wall and imagine him to be the next Rembrandt. This is a beautiful fact but if we are honest, it is the same reason that a woman can look at a figure hugging body con dress and think we’d look great in it. You aren’t seeing it on yourself, you are actually seeing it on Eva Mendes body, topped with your head, am I right?

 

We women don’t always see reality when looking at people we care about, rather, we see what a person could be. The boyfriend that doesn’t turn up for a date because his mates talked him into going to the pub with them, would never leave you sitting at home with two kids on a Friday night while he goes out with the same mates, right? This is admirable but it is a trait that has seriously lead women into trouble for millenniums.  When the smorgasbord of live is being rolled out instead of just looking at the possibilities and opportunities maybe if we are taught to see realities as well it might go some way to help.

 

Just ask Anne Boleyn, she absolutely thought that Henry VIII would be so enamoured by her that he would be faithful and love her only. She definitely wasn’t using her head, possibly why she lost it.

 

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21 Sep 2013

Magpie Season

I am still on about birds. I really love them, waking up in the morning, hearing the tinkling tones of their morning song is just so pleasurable. The chirp chirp chirp as they go about their business is just a lovely  way to start the day.

In Australia we are just so lucky to have the amount we do,  even in suburbia, there is a great variety.

Which leads nicely into what I was planning to say, some birds just aren’t that nice.  We’re talking Bush Turkey’s (anyone who lies in a Bush Turkey plague area knows exactly what I mean), we’re talking Top Knot Pigeons. Not that they aren’t nice, it’s just that they are so stupid, just ask Genevive the cat. I’ve got two words for you, “sitting ducks”, and we’re talking Magpies

Walking this morning in another part of town, I see a Magpie warning sign hammered into the ground ( Where were the signs when I was nine I ask). Magpie breeding season,  a time of terror, a time to be scared, a time when it would be really good to own a heavy duty sling shot but you know deep down you would never be able to hit the thing anyway.

Don’t get me wrong most of the time I just love to see Magpies hopping around, warbling on a fence or washing themselves in a puddle. However, another few metres and I see a convoy of kids on bikes weaving their way along the path on the other side of the road. Suddenly the whole bunch erupts into a series of high pitched squeals and I see a Kamikaze Magpie dive bombing them from on high, aiming for any exposed skin it could find.  The memories came flooding back, the stupid running with your hands waving above your head. The sharp stab of its beak as broke the skin on the top of your scalp  The cuts and bruises when you fall of your bike because the bird was chasing you and it tries to scalp you as you lie on the ground crying (yes I have trauma, I may need therapy).

What is the answer, who knows, but every year another batch of kids are subjected to a childhood right of passage that is Magpie mating season.

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20 Sep 2013

Home Sweet Home

The early morning peace was shattered, The locals were in an uproar, there were intruders in the neighbourhood and they were determined to defend there home at any cost. A gang of out of town hooligans were causing trouble and the neighbours were determined to run them out of Cotton Tree. A few altercations later, a few bruised ego’s and they left with no harm done……..

And you thought it was only humans that were freaked out about people they don’t know, moving in and taking over their home

It is amazing the ruckus a strange flock of Cockatoos can cause with the local bird population

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14 Apr 2013

Uni Night – Fun for all, Especially Your Mother

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The car glided over the intersection at the top of the hill, the panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean sparkling in the early morning sunlight was breathtaking. Driving at that hour of the morning could almost be considered a privilege. Streets usually congested with traffic, resemble airport runways, no stress, no road rage, time to think. Time to be thankful for my home on the Sunshine Coast.

You may be thinking that this all sounds lovely but what’s the purpose of all this driving, could it be only for pleasure? Not likely with petrol prices the way they are. The question can be answered in five words – Uni night at the Tavern. If you’ve never had children between the age of 18 and 23 you may never have realised the iconic signifigance of this type of event, it’s a rite of passage thing.

Then you get in the one o’clock in the morning phone call.

“Mum can you come and pick us up” said the voice of my beloved son on the other end of the phone.

“No I told you I’m not going to pick you up when you go to the Tavern. You choose to go to that place, you get yourself home” said I in my best strong mum voice, all the while picturing my boy standing shivering on a lonely, wind swept Burnett Street.

“You’ve got to pick me up, someone head butted me and I’ve got a fat lip and the bouncers kicked us out.”

I was up the hill in seven minutes flat, pulling up in the Woolies driveway. I can hear your voice of judgement right now as I write. The voice of accusation that says “you push over”. How could my son ever be at fault. I have no words of justification other than he’s my son.

The seathing monster that lives deep inside every mother, the one that lurks and waits, ready to spring to the defence of your six foot, broad shouldered, eighteen year old son, because no one can protect him like you, was desperately fighting for release. I sat there eyeballing the bouncers standing outside while two boys walked toward the car. Then I realised that the boys walking toward me weren’t my son and his friend and that I’d driven straight passed them. They had been sitting quietly on the curb on the other side of the street. I’m sure I heard someone say “pshyco mother” as I drove away with my pride and joy safely belted into the passenger seat, with no real evidence of any fowl play. It did enter my mind that possibly the revving of the car I was sub counsciously doing, while directing all this protective energy at the bouncers, could have been badly misconstrued.

 

At least this weeks call came at a semi reasonable 5.30 am.

“Mum can you pick us up I’ve got to go to work.” says my boy.

“No, get someone else to take you to work” hissed I, mother of the year.

“There’s no one else to take me, come on Mum” pleaded my son. 

Pulling the car over to the side of the road at an uncertain address, I thought about how many ways a mother sacrifices for her children. Sleep, no matter how old they are. Money, no matter how old they are. Time, it is never your own. Sitting there honking the horn and muttering to myself something about this being the last time, even I didn’t believe it.

 

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