“Three feet apart, girls, AND CUT OUT THAT TALKING”

I have been having conversations with people lately that have lead me to realise something.

I didn’t really like school. Oh, Primary School was ok, most of the time. But High School…sucked donkey balls. I don’t have those glorious “remember when” moments with all my old best buddies from school – because I didn’t keep in touch with anyone (well, I do keep in touch with one person, and she knows who she is!) and I don’t really remember school all that well. So, I was either blocking it out because it was completely hideous, or it really wasn’t much worth remembering.

I’ll start off with primary school, though. It’s a little less angst-ridden, after all.

Primary school was, as I mentioned, mostly good. The Archers moved around a bit, so including a stint at correspondence school, I spent time at four primary schools. Correspondence school was interesting – we were travelling so it would be a couple of months of play followed by a couple of weeks of solid slogging getting through a term’s work in a matter of weeks (shhh). Then, I spent some time at a country school with an Old School teacher. I hold him responisble for my appalling handwriting, actually.

He thought he could cure my seriously back sloping handwriting - that I compensated for with a tendency to like my paper on an extreme angle – with a ruler. And not just ANY ruler. One of those honkin’ big ones they used to use on blackboards. Oh, he’d try lobbing an eraser at me, too. Yep. Blackboard eraser. Nice. But I changed schools again the next year, and my next teacher was more interested in what I wrote than the how it got onto the paper.

The Parental Archers moved us into town because the high school I would have had to go to, had we remained in the country, was – shall we say – Bogan School. Desert boots in winter and Treds…appalling shoes made out of old car tyres (that ok, yes I DESPERATELY wanted and wasn’t allowed to have) were the footwear of choice in the summer. All the girls wore short skirts and drew on their arms with texta and the boys were all nasty dirty surfie boys. Anyway, suffice to say the parentals did not want their precious little Harriet  to mix with those nasty little beasts; so we moved into town and after my final year of primary school, I started at the local girls high school.

I was always an ok student, I kept up alright even with the changing of the schools. I always liked to read and to write and I was always ok with maths and the like. But high school… something about high school was just wrong. Horribly wrong. I remember painstakingly copying by hand reams of crap word for exacting word for project after project (still don’t think I got my animals one back) and getting hauled over the coals for photocopying the sodding pages and sticking them in my project book (but it’s supposed to be all your own work… what – someone else’s words but all in my own writing?)

Oh and the Deputy Headmistress. Her name was Miss Bromwich (I feel quite safe using her real name here, primarily because she was at LEAST 100 years old when I was at school, and I left there a very long time ago so if she’s NOT dead yet – well, that’s just proof that her name really was Broom-Witch as we all suspected) I had a couple of run-ins with her… nothing serious, just ‘uniform infractions’. I refused to button the top button on my shirt. Oh, and once, I didn’t wear my blazer over my school jumper. Golly.

Hrrrm. Beginning to suspect that school was indeed craptacular!

There was the notorious needlecraft teacher Mrs R. She raised the bar on the Fear Levels and kept them there for an entire year. I BROKE a sewing machine needle in my fingernail and I was too darn scared to tell her that I’d done it.

Oh, and there was my Alleged Best Friend in high school. And what an evil, scheming bitch she was. She was also an out and out bully. I didn’t realise. I’m a bit slow on the uptake, really. She was one of those girls who’d be your friend as long as you did what SHE wanted, and heaven help yourself if she caught you not doing what she wanted… I remember having to do this run thing when I was in about year eight (I think it was a 1000m run – two and a half laps of an oval somewhere).   She decided we would plod along at the end of the pack because neither of us were particularly athletic. Ok, fine. I don’t care. But this one time, I got into the Zone. I found my pace and I just went with it. She didn’t. And when she finally finished the course  (I remember  I lapped her) she told me off “I TOLD you we were going to stay at the back”. Then  she didn’t speak to me for a month! That wasn’t enough to tip me off that she was a right piece of work…

You know what tipped me off? Someone doing the same thing to the Big Kid at school a couple of years ago. I recognised that the Big Kid was being bullied almost as soon as it happened. Then I was all “O. Wait a minute…that’s what happened to me”

Slow on the uptake, that would be me.

Anyway, high school was a mixture of not being spoken to and being treated like a lackey by the ABF interspersed with plagiarising screeds of other people’s work. The Parentals did their very best to seperate us – to the point of trying to get me to change schools. That didn’t work, so they tried to get us in seperate classes. But we picked the same subjects – and of course, it was always the subjects that only ran one class. Except for maths. I always did Proper Maths. She did Vegie Maths. And Home Economics and things like that, while I faffed around learning how to blow stuff up err, chemistry and physics.

I stayed friends with her for a couple of years after school, then I was working and she wasn’t so we stopped seeing so much of each other. I introduced her to her first husband, and they were off in their little alternate universe and I drifted away from her. A few years down the track, I was convinced to give her another chance. This time, to my credit, when she tried to steal my boyfriend – I NOTICED. And ceased all contact immediately.

Sometimes lately, I have wondered – how different would my reflections on school be if I’d gone to Bogan School. Or even said ‘yes’ to changing schools when the Parentals wanted me to. And how different would my life have been without her influence…

Because I have a touch of the passive agressives about me, I did have some revenge on more than one occasion, though (but sometimes that’s what it’s like with bullies and their victims…symbiotic ). I’ve also come across her in various places and have so far resisted the temptation to find out what’s going on in her life. Plus, I have no desire to let her loose on The Bloke (who is a rather nice chap) And really, I am not the one with several children, all of whom have different fathers, and nor do I have more than two ex-husbands. So at the end of the day, I think I ‘won’. Although am I who I am because of her or in spite of her?

And that is indeed a question.

 

Tag from The Blog of Miss Prissypants – what products are you currently using?

It’s a Friday night, I have my antisocial pants on, am suffering severely from brain-rot after a couple of weeks of work days that started at 8am and finished well after 5pm. Some nights, even 6pm. And there’s really nothing onb television. But now, I am  on holidays. I am feeling the urge to write again but the creative juices need watering to get a bit of life back into them…so to brighten up your evening, I shall let you delve into Miss Harriet Archer’s Bathroom and let you know the secrets of my stunning and glorious visage.

SHAMPOO: Pantene Classic Clean. I know, I know Pantene is made of paint stripper and babies brains but a)I am not allergic to it and b) it’s cheap enough that it doesn’t matter when The Bloke uses a handful every time he washes his hair. I used to use a really flash one that was all herbal and delicious, but at $12 a bottle…Pantene does the job. 

CONDITIONER: Pantene Classic Clean. See above. I don’t have to condition my hair very often.

SHOWER GEL: Some Rexona thing at the moment. Normally something for sensitive flowers like myself, but I really need to go Hunting For the Family again.

STYLING PRODUCTS: I have lots of hair, but it’s very fine and slightly wayward. I can’t use anything too heavy or it ends up limp and lifeless. I can’t use anything too light or I may as well not bother. I’ve been not bothering however, The Bloke has requested that I grow my hair. This means I need a little something to give it a helping hand. So I have some mousse thing. If only I remember to use it.

BODY MOISTURISER: Palmer’s Cocoa-butter. It’s lovely and light and I think for the first time EVAH I do not have cracked and scabrous heels.

DEODORANT Mitchum Unscented. I’ve used it for years.

FAKE TAN : I have olive skin. Don’t need fake tan, and who wants to look orange, anyway.

FOUNDATION: Clarins True Radiance #9.

POWDER: I don’t do powder. I am not up to that stage quite yet!

CONCEALER: I haven’t bothered with concealer, either!

BLUSH: Crikey, another thing I don’t worry about. I am not that grown up and mature after all. 

 BRONZER: see above.

HIGHLIGHTER: What’s highlighter?

NAIL COLOUR:  Ok, back on familiar territory… I can’t cope with nail polish on my fingernails, but I normally paint my toenails (which are looking rather shabby, I have to say). My favourite is Revlon Red, although I alternate with a strawberry pink and a dark berry one. I used to really like Vixen, though. That was a bloody red. I’d wear that on my fingers when I went out to pull. Then peel it off as soon as I got home!  I wentthrough a stage when my nails were really crap, so I just kept them really short and moisturised them A LOT. They’re good now, but the habit still remains

EYESHADOW: Eyeshadow is a new thing for me. I haven’t worn it since I had a bad perm in 1982. It was Blue or Green and that was it. However, thanks to Miss Prissypants, I have become a lot more adventurous (and discovered there are more than two shades of eyeshadow and hey – more than two shades of Blue! Now the thing I am finding a little tricky is that my eyes are hazel. So colours that suit green are not quite right and neither are colours that suit brown eyes. Ah well, I have at least 30 different shades to play with – I am bound to work it out one day…And the hazel thing explains why the BLUE eyeshadow was so totally wrong for me all those years ago!

MASCARA: I alternate… I never used to wear black mascara – too black, too slutty, too something something. Then I discovered Clinique High Impact Mascara. It is rather nice. So nice that I bought a full sized one (which is why they put good stuff in the GWP isn’t it!). I also wear Chanel Smokey Violene and Chanel Marine. Depends on my mood.

LIPSTICK: Something I like the idea of a lot more than the reality. I like the look of it, and I do have a couple of really nice ones that I love with many many hearts (they’re all Dior ones, and I am much too lazy to go and tell you their names). There’s also a beige-y one from Clinique that is mild and innoffensive and hey. Mellows down a couple of my more outlandish lipsticks into something a little more suitable for work.

PERFUME: Another thing I am getting RIGHT into. I wore Christian Dior Dolce Vita for years. I still like it, but I’ve worn it since before the kids were a twinkle in my eye. Hell, I’ve worn it since before The Bloke was raising any twinkles of his own. We’ve just clocked up nine years, so it’s time for a change. Miss Prissypants has lead me down the very beautifully scented garden path to the joys of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. Well, I’d heard about them before but the whole no shipping internationally put paid to that idea. However… They now ship internationally. AND in a stroke of luck, I picked up 14 (yes, FOURTEEN) imps ears on ebay with which to delight and torment my nose-buds! So I have been having a fine old time with them, and discovering my perfume taste leans toward heavy florals. REALLY heavy, knock you down and beat you over the head with a rose bush florals. And Wiggle. Today was brought to you by Penelope. A lovely little Spanish influenced spicy floral blend. Nice! The Very Model of A Mini-Metrosexual (also known as The Big Kid) announced his approval, too.

I won’t be tagging anyone either, because I just don’t tag people. But hey, it’s a breaking the word drought. And if I can scratch up another 30 odd words… this will be a 1000 word post! I do recommend Miss Prissypants though if you’re interested in make up and that sort of thing, I Harriet am a rank amateur!

 

Long time, no write.

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

Many things have been happening around the Archer Residence. Most of which take up a lot of time and energy.

Some of them don’t.

I’ve released the “inner nana” and taught myself to crochet. I have just completed my very first project and I am now the proud owner of a hand crafted and absolutely gorgeous knee rug. I am spewing I didn’t go a bit further, as it’s not quite big enough to snuggle under on the couch! The Inner Nana is also quite keen on baking and whipped up her very first sponge cake. Ok, to be perfectly honest, on the same day, the Inner Nana whipped up her second and finally third sponge cake. Nana is a little scared of going back into the sponge cake waters and has returned to more familiar cupcake territory.

Obviously, the Inner Nana is a Nana of many talents, as the housework is more or less under control, and thanks to Masterchef; the Bloke of the House and I have rekindled our love for cooking. The Bloke has cooked the absolutely most perfect steak imaginable. Rare eye fillet resting on a bed of mash with wilted spinach. We’re eating like Kings and Queens in this house. Right royal, we are. Tonight, it’s quiche lorraine with shortcrust pastry made from scratch thank you very much.

Working full time has created it’s own series of challenges. The washing machine finally decided to die a glorious and spectacular death (damn, there went my liberation) only to be fortuitously resurrected by an unexpired extended warranty  This meant that instead of the Washing Machine Man replacing two or three broken parts - all of which he had in the truck; he’d replace the whole motor and I’d get another five years out of my washing machine. I was without a washing machine for 17 days. Yes. I counted them. I had two trips to the laundromat – with children in tow. I never thought I would publically say I LOVE my washing machine. But there you have it!

Cooking, crocheting, housework… Harriet’s a busy girl!

Oh, and there’s Bloody Bejewelled Bloody Blitz on Bloody Facebook, too. 

Each game only takes a minute… but hells bells, time flies when you start playing that stupid game. Of course, they reset your high score every few days so the challenge is *always* there. And to be the best in your group of friends is such a delightfully satisfactory feeling. With an undercurrent of WHAT do I think I am doing, obsessing over a stupid Facebook game… And did I mention it’s only a minute? Like in the time it’s taken me to write this masterpiece, I could have played 20 games, beaten your high score and been the legend of the playground for like you know five minutes or something… Yes. Ok. I am obsessed. I nearly bought a new mouse because I couldn’t click fast enough.

But seriously, $96 for a super swish laser mouse so I could beat the highest high score in the universe? Sanity prevailed and I backed carefully away from the Mouse Display and resumed my usual programming.

I gave Farmtown the arse, though.

There’s a timewaster from Hell. When I started to stress out about crops to plant if I wasn’t going to be home in time to harvest them, I knew it was time to give it the sack. The guilt I felt when I was having network problems, got kicked off and couldn’t finish harvesting someone elses crops… The feeling of panic that set in was bizarre… It was only a stupid GAME fer feck’s sake.

I didn’t mind it at first. It was fun. I had maybe ten Farmtown Friends, I’d go work on their farms then play around on mine for half an hour then go and do something else. Then I had 15 Farmtown Friends, then 20 and finally about 30. It became a chore. I didin’t want to go online in case someone saw me and wanted me to harvest their crops for them.

It was worse than hiding from door-to-door salesmen on the off chance they’d knock at your door. Because these were people I’d like to chat to under normal curcumstances. It was like they’d all ‘discovered a wonderful business opportunity that could change my life’!

But sanity again prevailled, and I first let my fields go fallow for a while. Then I didn’t visit the site for a couple of weeks. Then I deleted all my “gifts” and then I finally bit the bullet and blocked the application. I felt a giant weight lift from my chest. And I am not the only one! More than a few of my Farm Town Friends have given up the farm in search of something else more meaningful (you know, like housework… Hey, wait a minute… the housework started coming together oh about three or four weeks ago. Just around the same time as I downed tools on the farm!)

Ok, Farmtown’s gone. I’ve accepted I have a problem with Bejewelled… The house is tidy, and there’s cupcakes in the cupboard. The creative juices have started to flow… Who knows, maybe it won’t be five months til my next update! Stay tuned… But I’d make sure you’ve got a cuppa and a cookie or two before you sit and wait…

 

Zen and the Art of Car Maintenance (or things that make me go GRARGH)

The Bloke of the House went away on Thursday for a very long weekend of fishin’ and man stuff, leaving me home alone with the Big Kid and the Little Kid. That in itself doesn’t make me go “grargh”.

Well, it does a little tiny bit – but only because the kiddies and I can sorta, maybe just a teeny-tiny little bit, get up each other’s noses on a weekend when we’re left alone together and there’s housework and grocery shopping and all those other bits and pieces that need to be done about the place. Although they’re more than happy to have the consequences of these bits and pieces, all they really want is a piece o’ they mama! Even if it’s the YELLING Mama

So I thought to myself very carefully “I knows, I will do all the housework at night, then I can play with the kiddies on the weekend, and there will be no need for yelling and maybe, perhaps, you never know… Some FUN could possibly be had.

Except I did not factor in the thing that made me go GRARGH!

The Big Kid came to work with me for a couple of days last week (as a side note, he was PERFECT, and compliments were received from the childfree along the lines of “if all children were like the Big Kid, more people would have kids”) anyway, Big Kid and I returned to the Big Red Car after a hard day’s work – Bags in, seatbelts on, off to pick up the Little Kid and get some tasty take away for dinner…

Except for the whole NOT actually going anywhere part. No ‘brrrrrrmmmm’ when the key was turned in the ignition because the whole key would NOT turn. Not in gear, not in anything and NOT going!

GRARGH!

Big Kid is under control, but the Little Kid? Has to be collected and soonish – WHAT would Ferris Do?

Call the Auto Club, of course.

So I called the Auto Club who confirmed what I thought… The key is stuck in the ignition.

 He hotwired it for me and got me going (yay!)

But he forgot to tell me how to turn it off (oops!)

 I had to call them again to find out how (and they are not supposed to hotwire cars like that, apparently, so the poor bloke is in trouble for doing me a massive favour) and they sent another man to turn the car off for me.

So here’s how I see my weekend… Driving around with a car with NO casing on the steering column, key stuck in the ignition AND whipping a screw driver out of my handbag to start and stop the car…

Of course, I couldn’t actually get it to start with the screwdriver when I tried to do it… Anyway, the Bloke has a Very Handy with Cars mate, so I gave him a call. He, being Very Handy with Cars and all that, was able to confirm that the key was indeed irretrievably jammed in the ignition and that I needed a new ignition barrel. Stat!

He started the car, laughed at my wussy girlie wrists that were incapable of turning a screwdriver in a teensy hole and starting a car, and parked it up behind the roller door for me.

He also laughed at my fear of car being stolen in its whole “doesn’t have any casing on the steering column and look! There’s a very handy screwdriver sitting on the seat” state of glory.

GRARGH!

Anyway, aforementioned Handy Mate located a sparkly new ignition barrel for me – and all I had to do was collect it.

Not a problem, load the kids in the car and drive casually over to the spare parts man and pick up the spare part.

Not a problem at all… Except for the whole “can’t turn the screwdriver because of the wussy girlie wrists” thing. Oh, and the “auto club guy turned the car off by unplugging the fuel pump and then I’ve parked the car on a slope all night and the fuel tank is at the back of the car” thing.

GRARGH!

Oh, and the parts shop shuts at midday, I haven’t had a shower and it’s 10.30am.

GRAAAAARRRRRGGGGH!

Showered, dressed, in the car, roll it down the hill and onto the flat. So far, so good (and nice to know one can actually roll an automatic if one needs to). Then I try to start the stupid thing…

Nope. No starting. Car No Go.

GRARRRGGGH!

I now have less than one hour in which to get this part. Breathe, breathe… centre oneself and calming thoughts and WHADDERYOU KNOW! It started.

YAY!

Turned the car off, bolted inside and bundled the kids out to the car. Inserted my trusty screwdriver into the slot and…

Nothing.

Sweet F.A.

NOT a peep. Just the sound of a car refusing point blank to turn over… And we’re down to 45 minutes.

Kids back inside whilst I called the Cavalry (hey mum????) But the Cavalry were off to the races, and were headed in the absolutely opposite direction.

I went back to wrestling with the car (plus I didn’t want my kids to see me CRY!) Still nothing. So, wiping tears of frustration and rage and general misery from my eyes, I called the Auto Club again…

NINETY MINUTE WAIT…

Then I really cried!

Then I calmed down a bit, called the parts guy and sent a taxi to collect my part with 23 minutes to go. And like magic, the plan came together and I had the part in my hot little hand. Yay!

Mission accomplished.

Of course, I managed to start the car the very instant the Auto Club arrived, because that’s what happens. So I moved my freshly started car, swapped it with the trusty ute and the stupid bloody thing is going to stay right where it is until Handy Mate arrives to replace that ignition barrel and I don’t look like a trainee car thief when I try to start it!

And what was the icing on the cake? What was the thing that really managed to completely and unequivocally made my day?

The sodding washing machine broke as well!

GRARGH!

 

Stalking live relatives…

I have been wondering a little bit about doing the whole using the giant can opener to open the gigantic can of worms and seeing what’s inside thing that I have been putting off and off and off probably for about ummm 18 years.

Is that the longest sentence ever with absolutely NO punctuation?

Here’s the facts and nothing but the facts.

Adopted as an infant.

Cool with that. Cool parents and all that. Happy with them, too.

BUT…

Whole itty bitty gap in my space/time continuum here… And every so often, the gap opens up and I can look straight down into the abyss of “what if?” and “why did…?” and well, sometimes I want to know about the who and the what and the why that happened in the space immediately before and just after I was born.

I was born in the mid sixties (which makes me the second oldest person on the internet) and that’s just what happened to women who had children out of wedlock. Someone came and took them away. Doesn’t make it right, that it’s just what happened. Doesn’t make it wrong, either.

Ok, for some people, they’re not right without their biologicals. They have a great slashing gaping hole in their continuum rather than a wee gap that opens and closes (but never truly goes away). But would they have been right with their biologicals? Or is the wrongness they feel something they have attached to their adoption thing, where it may be something else all together?

Now, I could go for years without anything adoption related crossing my mind in the slightest. Most of the time, it’s just “I am tall, I am blonde, I am adopted and my eye colour is subject to change without notice”. It’s a part of me that’s important but not – just like my eye colour and my hair and my height. Part of what makes me “me”.

Then the cosmos aligns and the gap opens up. Sometimes it opens a little… sometimes it opens enough for me to get the application form to apply for more information. And just once, it opened up enough for me to not only get the application, but fill it in and send it off.

So now I have enough information to contact the Biological Ancestor. More than enough, as I have discovered there’s a degree of fun and amusement in stalking LIVING ancestors in addition to the dead ones.

I can tell you where she lives now (white pages), where she lived a few years ago (electoral roll), what her married name is (that was a fluke, ok) Oh, and the reason I know I am the second oldest person on the internet is because the Biological Ancestor has a web page, too. With pictures.

So I have seen what she looks like. That’s a weird feeling.

Because one of the things I am looking for is to see if I have a family face. She seemed to have darkish hair and blue eyes. I don’t have either. Maybe it’s not her family I am needing to see… Although there’s a touch about the eyebrows here and there… We seem to have similar personalities – in writing at least; although she loves Lord of the Rings and I don’t. But she’s into Terry Pratchett as well, so some is forgiven.

So do I contact her? Or not? Do I open up the can of worms and see what happens? My own mum doesn’t know I have found what I have found for a start – and Bio Ancestor placed a veto (it expired, hence my ability to get the information I have) so she’s not expecting me to rock up on her door step and say “Hi Mum, you need to update your  profile… You need to add on one kid and a couple of  grandkids, alright?”

I found her name on a genealogical website I frequent, so I can send her a really simple, non-threatening email to suggest that there’s the slightest possibility that she and I may be related in some way shape or form. It’s the kind of thing that should only be seen by her; as when one receives a message from this forum, it directs you *back* to the website in order to read the message.

Do I don’t I, do I don’t I?

As I sit here with the can opener, taptaptapping…

 

A Story about a Fairy Princess…

Once upon a time, a Fairy Princess was born in a great tower far, far away.

 

Unfortunately, the mother of said Fairy Princess was not deemed to be a suitable person to be the parent of said Fairy Princess; so she deposited her progeny at a place where the Fairy Princess would find a home that would be perfectly suited to her Royal-ness.

 

Or something like that.

 

Perhaps it was more along the lines of Skanky Trollope paused briefly in the process of taking many drugs and rooting many men to squeeze out a crotch dropping and passed it along to the place where homes were found for Mini Trollopes?

 

Although seeing as said infant was a healthy and rather chubby young thing, one would be right to assume that perhaps the reality fell somewhere between the two. It was the mid sixties, and the Summer of Lerve was slow to come to the City of Churches. In fact, it is strongly suspected that the Summer of Lerve secretly bypassed the City of Churches all together. And the Summer of Love happened in 1967, by which stage, the hero of this story was a strapping young toddler.

 

In 1965, the Prime Minister was Robert Menzies; the Governor General was a Viscount or a Lord. And Australia sent its first troops to Vietnam. Light Fingers won the Melbourne Cup and Australia was really crap at cricket. The population was only a bit over 11 million people – which is about half what it is now. They were listening to The Beatles, and The Stones, and Herman’s Hermits with a bit of Billy Thorpe and the Seekers for a bit of local colour. Oh, and Mary Quant invented the mini-skirt.

 

Australia officially abandoned the White Australia Policy (was it really only that long ago?) and an erstwhile young chap called Tom Angrove invented the wine cask. He held the patent for the container for Chateau Cardboard, and is thus the Godfather of many cheap and nasty nights on the piss (perhaps Our Fairy Princess was more closely related to Skanky Trollope? Although her tastes swiftly turned toward wine of the bottled variety; which does  indicate a definite touch of princessery…)

 

Classic television such as Gilligan’s Island, Batman, I Dream of Jeannie and Hogans Heroes all first took to the airwaves in 1965. Our Fairy Princess distinctly remembers watching these shows as a five and six year old, well after they’d finished being produced; so it would appear the Summer of Lerve was not the only thing slow to come to the City Of Churches.

 

Now, our Fairy Princess was adopted by a lovely young couple who lavished her with love and affection. They provided her with a home and a baby sister (although according to family legend, our wee princess would have much preferred a puppy…) and everything else a girlie could need.

 

This did not stop Fairy Princess from turning into Angsty Teen, however. But unlike most Angsty Teens who wished they were adopted and their Real Parents ™ would come a knockin’ on the door; Fairy Princess could console herself with the fact that Loving Parents were not really her parents and that she actually was a Fairy Princess and surely one day her Real Parents™ would come flying to her rescue and save her from these terrible people who wanted her to smile occasionally, and oh maybe do her homework instead of aimlessly staring out the window and plotting their demise.

 

Of course, time passes, and Loving Parents resumed their former role in the life of our young Fairy Princess – that of loving parents! However, Fairy Princess was not immune to this tiny little nagging feeling of “hmmm, am I missing something?” every couple of years. After a few of these “couple of years” went by, the Fairy Princess realised that what she actually wanted to do was find out what went on before she was adopted by the Loving Parents…

 

So she sent away for the application forms. This was indeed the very olden days decisions had to be made, letters had to be written and responses awaited eagerly. Of course, by the time the eagerly awaited response arrived, the Fairy Princess had changed her mind sort of… Or chickened out, most likely. Away went the application form for another day; until that niggle arose again. Naturally, being as how these applications had to be lodged with a government department, and being as how government departments like nothing more than changing something that’s working perfectly finely, Our Fairy Princess would again send away for the application forms, wait, and subsequently change her mind.

 

This happened more than once. Maybe more than three or four times. By which stage, the government department had gone all 21^st century on her and the application form was available WHENEVER she wanted it. So much for that excuse any more. Obviously, though, the availability of the aforementioned application form at her fingertips just made it easier for her to say “oh, another day”.

 

Then, the Fairy Princess had progeny of her own, and the need to find out at least a little something about what happened all the way back then was getting a little harder to ignore. Somehow, the application was downloaded and completed in many different pens, the identification was copied and certified and the application was posted. Not without first checking with the post office as to when the post box would be cleared and if it were still possible to change one’s mind. It was, and she didn’t.

 

Finally, the giant envelope arrived and was opened and our Fairy Princess had a name. Strangely, it wasn’t a name that fit. In fact the name that she saw made her snigger a tiny bit. SO not her, and so indeed someone she used to know but we’re getting away from the track here…. There was more information to be read about and a letter from someone who sounded a lot like her… “Strange, reading your own voice”, she thought as she read it. Even more so, as she was the same age, give or take, as the person when she wrote it.

 

Another application form or two, some judicious googling and at least one or two strokes of luck, and our Fairy Princess had more than enough information to go in search of and to locate the recently named Biological Ancestor, who seems remarkably similar to the Loving Mother!

 

So there’s not a thing to stop her from going ahead with contacting the BA… Except for one or two minor details… Like the subsequently expired veto placed on her records by the Biological Ancestor – technically, our Princess has been ‘rejected’ twice. Would her ego stand up to a third time? Did the veto mean the BA really didn’t want to know about her? Or because she didn’t renew it when the time came, changed her mind again? Oh and there’s the whole not even quite sure if she wants to go open what is potentially a can of worms and get involved with a whole ‘nother bunch of people when she has as little to do with her actual relatives as is humanly possible…

 

And this is where we will leave our Fairy Princess, sitting in front of her gigantic can of worms, can opener in hand…

 

To be continued…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oops…

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

I’ve been a tiny bit busy lately. I know, any excuse for not updating you with the inner workings of my little brain. But I really have been busy.

You know that job I didn’t think I’d get?

I got it.

So I have gone from grumbling through three days a week of misery in the Hellhole Known as My Previous Employer to spending my days playing with numbers, reading reports and going on excursions (today, I saw the Premier). Much more satisfying and dare I say it, enjoyable. BUT I am now working five whole days a week. And I am now a commuter. Yes, I have joined the ranks that trek up the highway to the Big Smoke. This commuting trek is only for a relatively short time, at which point we shall be able to resume our usual programming, as I will not be spending three and a half hours a day getting to and from work. Unsuprisingly, this renders me somewhat comatose at the end of the day. My brain is full of exciting tales for your reading pleasure, so there is plenty for you to look forward to – eventually.

Now, just to tide you over, I am going to share with you a snippet or ten about my commute. My wonderful and courteous new employer believe that a happy work force leads to a productive workplace. This is such a change from working in the Hellhole (coffee, anyone? Piece of fruit? Oh, what about a massage…); and in the interests of convenience for the staff, they are running a bus so that we don’t have to squeeze onto the train, which is an adventure in itself.

My preferred mode of transport is the Train. This is primarily because the bus doesn’t always suit me; and also because, despite my advancing years, I still get car sick if I so much as put my head down in a moving vehicle. This means reading, writing – anything more than staring mindlessly out a window or having a wee kip means I am liable to lose my lunch. Whilst sometimes it’s nice to stare aimlessly out the window, on a regular basis it feels like a waste of *me* time. So I tend to catch the train. But the train comes with it’s own set of interesting drawbacks.

1. I catch a train fairly early in the morning. Not as early as some, but still early. Normally, I get there early enough to see the “special train”. The Special Train is a gentleman of advancing years. On a push bike. Wearing a hard hat. Every morning at about 6.53am, he blows a horn and pedals along past the platform as fast as he can. Making train noises. Cracks me up, it does. Every morning, just before the 6.56 arrives – there he is.

2. I get on the train at the second stop in the morning. This means that if I position myself close enough to the edge of the platform and if I have my elbows at the correct height, I can finangle my way into the carriage and get myself a nice, comfy seat. This is a good thing. If I got on one stop later… I’d be STANDING for the entire journey. That wouldn’t be so much fun. Coming home, I sometimes catch the bus, but mostly catch the 16.55. This train is Old Skool. It has compartments! It’s an old diesel loco and takes for ever to stop at all stations. But hey, can stretch out and relax.

3. Things I like about travelling on the train… I can read (no, I do NOT know why I don’t get sick on trains); I can catch up with reading reports and the like for work, too. But mostly, I just read. Uninterrupted 50 minutes of reading time – bliss! In the afternoons, I have been getting MX which is the free paper, reading it and attempting to do the puzzles before I toss down the whole thing in disgust when I stuff up the suduko. I used to be lucky to read a book in two weeks - now, I am reading about two or three a week. I like listening in to other people’s conversations, too. Like you know she’s gone all like weird you know like she’s studying and stuff like and she’s not mucking up like. Like. Teenagers are like you know… Like.

4. Things I don’t like so much about travelling on the train. Aside from the whole three and a bit hours total commute and all that… You’d be thinking that in the morning at least, most people would have had some kind of interaction with the whole soap and water scenario. Well, you’d be wrong. Soap is apparently optional for rather a substantial proportion of the average city commuter. And the wearing of the expensive clothing is not an accurate predictor of how close the wearer has been to the shower that day. This is most noticable when I am squeezing myself onto the Loop train in the morning.

5. I am also not so keen on the pressure I put myself under in order to catch a train that gets me home in time to say “Hi” to the Bloke Of The House and the offspring. After a particularly fraught evening involving skin of ones teeth and the sight of Fair Harriet RUNNING (and been damn grateful for flat shoes and the wearing of trousers, I tell you what); an alarm has been set up on my computer to advise me that it’s TIME TO GO NOW, ok?

6. And techincally, it’s not *A* train that I catch in the morning – it’s two trains. I have to change trains in the morning – push my way off the first train, using as many skills as I needed to get *on* it in the first place; trundle up and down ramps and across platforms to find the right train that’s headed my way. Then I get to shoehorn my way onto the Loop train. Quite frankly, this is an experience. An unpleasant one. Particularly for all the people who get whacked in the head and randomly stepped on by Little Miss Incompetent… Yes, that would be me. I’m a danger to myself and everyone around me, and I am armed with a backpack, so watch out!

So there you have it. This is week five of thirteen weeks of commuting. I am sure that by Christmas I will indeed be able to change trains without maiming anyone AND walk up the escalator at Parliament Station without being a coronary candidate three quarters of the way to the top!

 

101 uses for an Arts Degree…

I believe I may have mentioned at some point that in addition to being your humble correspondent and Wayward Domestic Goddess; I am indeed gainfully employed as a Slave for Wages in a large and bureaucratic nightmare. What I haven’t mentioned is that the aforementioned position is about as stimulating and challenging as a bowl of cottage cheese. Whilst I am not asking the eternal question of “Would you like fries with that?” I am sure that it is only a matter of time before the Powers that Be decree that the addition of a deep fryer behind reception can only be an improvement to the quality of service provided, and I can indeed add that phrase to my repertoire.

 

I may also have mentioned that I have a short attention span…Oh look, a tractor!

 

Now, where was I?

 

That’s right…Underwhelmed and under stimulated. In fact, to be perfectly frank, bored out of my tiny little mind. So what’s a girl to do? The last time I found myself in this position, I decided a spot of further education would be just the ticket. But I’ve been there and done that and got the pretty piece of paper hanging on my wall to prove it.

 

Pretty piece of paper…

 

Ahhh, I have an Arts Degree. What can one do with an Arts Degree? Hmm. One can deliver fries with a smile, wait on tables, clean toilets, make beds, fold laundry… Wait a second, that describes my life of Domestic Goddessery. No, there has to be more than that. Ooooh. Looking up stuff. I can do that. I am rather good at doing that and here’s a job that does just that…

 

What? Apply for another job? Are you insane? Find another job and leave the bosom of the large and bureaucratic nightmare? Where I am bored and frustrated and slowly going around a very twisty bend? What a splendid idea, chaps!

 

So I exhumed the resume – it’s a wonder how well parchment holds up over time; caught up with the last hundred years or so, whipped up a letter outlining my general fabulousness and sent it all off into the ether. Done. And dusted. And as a creative writing exercise, not a bad thing.

 

And then they called me…

 

Eek!

 

And no, that was not a mouse. THAT was the noise my faculties made when they left the building. My goodness gracious me, I felt like Sally Field at the Oscars – “They like me, they really like me”. But bloody hell, that means a job interview. And it had well and truly been a long long time between drinks. On the positive side, the last job I went for, I did actually get. On the negative side, that was so long ago that children who were born on that day can actually vote now! Things have changed, too. Back then it was all a bit of a chat and when can you start? Now, it’s all behavioural interviews and tell us about your strengths and weaknesses.

 

How does one make being a scatterbrained chatterbox with a really short attention span seem like an attractive proposition, anyway? And most importantly, what on earth do I wear!?! It’s the dead of winter, global warming appears to be on hold, or all the frozen air is being blown straight away from Antarctica or something and apparently it’s not the done thing to wear trousers to a job interview.

 

There was one thing to be done – pantyhose. I shall briefly mention here exactly how much I loathe pantyhose and the whole torturous contortionisms that are required to get ones slightly longer than average legs into a sheer nylon tube designed for legless midgets.

 

Anyway, pantyhose on, small children more than slightly freaked out (“what happened to your legs, mummy? They’ve gone all black” from the Big Kid, and “oooh take it off, take it off” from the Little Kid; which probably indicates how long it has been since I have worn pantyhose.) There were trains to be caught, and people to be impressed.

 

The auspices were not great – three hours sleep the night before, they had my name wrong at the door; and I had to wait for 15 minutes. Just long enough to get sweaty. Fabulous. The interview went well enough that I wasn’t upset with my performance. I made eye contact, I had some answers prepared. Not to the questions they asked, but since when has that been a problem? They seemed like lovely people, and the chances of me seeing any of them ever again?

 

Buckley’s and none.

 

I don’t think I am what they’re looking for… But I don’t feel like I have lost out. In fact, I feel like I have gained a lot from the experience. I have an up to date resume. I know I am attractive to a prospective employer on paper, at least. And I have successfully completed one job interview. Not only that, I have discovered that an Arts Degree could possibly be a passport out of Hell and even a ticket to a more exciting place. Most importantly, I have acknowledged that I don’t need to stay where I am forever. And failing getting out, I can always get some more education to stop me going postal…

 

Invincible Mother Pants

 Greetings from Chez Archer. 

Life has descended into chaos, madness and other related things generally involving output from orifices preferably dealt with by their respective owners. Unfortunately due to the lack of age of some of the owners of the aforementioned orifices, the attentions of Super Mother have been substantially required. 

This has resulted in two things. 

1. A considerable upswing in the average number of loads of washing; and

2. A dearth of postings from yours truly. 

With the parts of the second part directly caused by the increase in parts in the first part. Or something. Parts. Washing. Excessive bodily fluids flowing; creative juices not so much. You get the picture.

 

So far, the Little Kid, the Big Kid AND the Bloke of the House have been struck down by any combination of the two lurgies we’ve been accommodating. There’s the Gastro Lurgy and the Chest Infection Lurgy, both of which have knocked around the members of the household listed above. 

 

But did you notice who does NOT feature prominently on the list of afflicted members?

 

Oh, you did! Here, have a Tim Tam you clever thing, you. Oh, have two… 

 

Yes. Me. The Mother of the House. 

 

Despite being poo-ed on, spewed on (more times than I can count – five head to toe changes of clothes in a single day for me alone may give you an indication of the troubles I’ve seen) and having assorted noses wiped upon parts of my personage; I am yet to develop even the slightest twitchiest tickle in the throat, or even the most minute grumbling of the lower intestine. 

 

WHY is this so? This is indeed a question worthy of the Great Doctor Julius Sumner Miller…  

 

Mother of the House is bathed regularly in the output of two small children, yet manages to escape unscathed from the ravages of said illnesses? Bloke of the House catches everything that’s going round? It’s not fair, is it?

 

Although, if you think about it… it’s not all that bad. I mean I don’t have to race off to the toilet with a bucket and a box of tissues under my arm because sure as anything, if I don’t – one of the other bits will go off. I can tuck into a delicious meal without wondering about the impact on the more delicate organs. Well, I could if I could be bothered cooking a delicious and nutritious meal for one after a day of cleaning up effluvia…

 

Has to be in the pants, I tell you.

 

The Invincible Mother Pants

 

(worn on the inside, naturally!)

 

Playing Pirates with my Imaginery Friends

Last night, I helped my friend’s daughter with her maths homework. Algebra. 

“So what?” I hear you say…

Well, she lives over an hour away and we did it via MSN. (I don’t know what’s more noteworthy – the MSN homework help or the fact that I can still remember how to do algebra 20+ years down the track…) We worked out the answer, she worked out what I was doing and it was all good. At the same time, I was chatting to another friend and comparing really bad family snap shots. This friend’s at least 200km away and here we were, comparing family shots like we were sharing a cuppa and a biscuit.

Now, I am not a total weirdo, I do have real life, flesh and blood friends that I interact with on a face to face basis. But what with one thing and another; my friends seem to be scattered far and wide across the countryside. Even the closest one at 5km away is still a tiny bit too far to just pop in for five minutes and a cuppa. Assuming she’s home…

Since I started delving into the World of Flylady, though, I have discovered the joys of chatting whilst I do my housework with a pack of semi-strangers. These are a group of women brought together by the simple fact we’re reluctant housekeepers who forgot to queue up on the day they were handing out the Domestic Goddess Badges. All of us can think of a thousand million bazillion things we’d rather be doing than cleaning up after other people. A few of us work as well, which brings its own particular challenges – juggling those domestic responsibilities in the limited time remaining after putting in a 30 hour week. So we chat to each other… Encourage each other on a bad day; reward each other with coffee breaks and loads of virtual vodka.

Back in the Olden Days, people tended to grow up, go to school, go to work and raise their own families in the same area for generations. In fact, in some places – they still do. But lots of people move around, be it for education, work opportunities, for love for just the simple fact that they CAN. In the Olden Days, too, it was customary for Mother to stay home with the kids, and for Father to go out and work. 

So people stayed closer to home and they knew their neighbours. Pop in for a quick cuppa tea and a biscuit; borrow a cup of flour, pinch that recipe for Aunty Edna’s Prize Winning Scones, quick whinge about Little Johnny tracking mud through the house *again* and back into your own place. Have a chat over the fence whilst you hang out the washing, watch the kids playing some death defying game involving sticks and rocks. There was a sense of community.

Now though, people are in and out of their cars in their driveways or straight into the two car garage and inside the house. Mothers are just as likely to be at work as Fathers, and children move away from their families. People don’t talk to other people. Ok, they nod and wave; but that’s the limit of their interactions. One of my neighbours is an octogenarian dope fiend – not the type of person I’d be hitting up for recipe tips – gardening tips, maybe, but not cooking. My other neighbour plays drums. Badly. And the only reason I know his first name is because I can see his wireless internet connection.

But my on line buddies are like my “neighbours”. We hang out over our virtual fences and chat about the kids, pinch recipes from each other. Ok, it’s a tiny bit difficult to borrow that cup of flour when you need one, but hey the service station round the corner has all of that. When you’re having a bad day, the kids are finger-painting with your $100 a jar moisturiser, you’ve just dropped a brand new box of Rice Bubbles all over the floor and you just discovered the neighbour’s cat has killed a bird in the laundry. And in the bathroom. And is eating the head in the middle of your bed…

*PING* there’s one of Lovely Ladies calling out “You Flying today, Harriet? Come and join us…” I get it off my chest, and 15 minutes later, the cat is evicted, the Rice Bubbles are swept and the soft and sweet smelling children are doing something less expensive.

The Bloke of the House calls them my Imaginary Friends. He also doesn’t quite understand how my chatting to Imaginary People means the housework gets done… However he’s conceded that if the cost of a clean house is having the Missus on the computer; it may well be a small price to pay. 

There’s something about a burden shared being a burden halved or something – and whilst we’re not *really* sharing the housework, we are. We are sharing the drudgery and the repetition. Taking the mindlessness out of it… Work for 15 minutes, chat for 5, work for another 15 and brag about what you achieved (or moan about what you didn’t) and at the end of the hour or the day, the washing’s done and kitchen is shiny; dinner’s on the table and hey, we’ve actually eaten lunch. One of us will remember, for sure. 

And it’s not all about doing the housework…

Sometimes, we play Pirates!

(Arrrrr)