All this talk of tv has made me google

I just found this tv guide for the 1985-86 season and my God, I want to be back there. All that grouse telly! Hardly any of it has probably stood the test of time.

I'm only just now realising the extent of my misspent youth.

"How 'bout Buddhism?"

It's a widely known fact to those who have endured me for years in real life, but a little known secret on the www, that I am a movie-tv-line-oholic. If there were M-TVL Anonymous meetings, I'd have to go.

Obscure lines from dumb movies - point in case, the title of this entry (where's it from? Anyone? Anyone? Vooodoooo economics...).

On another note, my last few entries of baaaad tv also prompted this list of flashbacks from a friend:

Werewolf
Masquerade
Cover Up (with that Jon-Eric Hexum guy who died when playing Russian Roulette)
Dark Shadows (the remake)
C.H.O.M.P.S
C.H.I.P.S.
The Littlest Hobo (there's a voice, that keeps on calling me...)
Grizzly Adams
BJ and the Bear

Tick, tick.... can't say I know Cover Up .... tick, tick, yep, tick ..... and to this I would like to add the even more obscure:

Manimal
The Tomorrow People
Hollywood Beat
and Monkey, not that you could call that one obscure..... (the power of Monkey wazzzz.... IRREPRESSIBLE)

I loved Manimal. I think I also had a crush on that guy too. Geez, apparently I wasn't fussy.... did you see his photo? He could change from a man into a raven, into a panther..... yeah!

Now see here

This is not John Gage from Emergency!

However, this is (not the poor fella on the right who they cast alongside him, how mean).

Got it?

And finally... the respect I deserve

Don't know if it's just Victoria getting this tv commercial, but there is a safe practices sort-of community service announcement about checking your bbq's and the gas pipes to ensure there are no leaks.

The ad finishes with a very sombre woman saying "Treat gas with the respect it deserves."

Cue the luffley husband piping up and calling out to me:

"I respect you! I respect your gas, okay?"

Huh. Like THAT plea is gonna stop me.

Oh! About the prego stars....

Must just address that it is NOT 'jealousy', in my books, that causes us to think this way. No way, uh uh, Mz Tato. You are spot on in your previous comment.

And my goodness, just saw the ever-"gets it" K77's comment..... that's exactly it! You've added points there that I meant to say (no, really...what? stop looking at me like that, I did mean to!) - especially about the apparent shame of celebs who've had procedures to get their bundles of joy, who don't publicise that. Sure, some would say leave them alone, who's business is it. Well, to that I would say, if pretty much everything else is free domain, particularly if they're partial to an interview or two during pregnancy, then I say hell, yes, they almost have an obligation to say how it went down for them!

But you know, the bloody media would turn it into a big sob, woe-is-Julia type article that would end up not helping anyone. Doesn't it make your blood boil? Or your brown eyes blue?

*late edit* With my head in my hands, I realise that .... in my last post, I admitted to performing imaginary lip-syncing concerts to my 'boyfriend' (could he have been my very first?!), Johnny Gage. Oh, the shame of it all.

Get this blog to Rampart!

There is no excuse for my tardiness. Well, ok, there is. I've bin busy. That's no excuse.

I have, however, been fruitful while I've been away. I've found this (and, oh, if you're not on the same page as me with remembering this short-lived spin-off series and romanticising about the two couples like I did as a swoony 10 year-old, then..... I don't want to know. This show WAS the best. At the time.)

I've also finally found people who are on my wavelength. They really understand me. The issues that have concerned me for years. My hopes, my fears, my ..... everything. Come and meet them here! (you'll have to scroll down) In fact, they say everything I've been wondering for years. And their zealousness comforts me so I know I'm not alone. Perhaps I should just redirect my blog addy there.......

Have I gone too far? Mwaaaahahahahaha. But c'mon, you DID love John Gage didn't you? (He was MINE in my head, I dreamed about him, I visited him in America, he came and watched a school concert - all performed in the privacy of my wallpapered bedroom, of course)

And lastly, a new favourite site to frequent: Jump The Shark - ever heard of the term?

Ellanor

Happy birthday, you gorgeous guiding light.

In my thank you's to you, I forgot to thank you for waiting til I'd showered and straightened this thick mane of mine before breaking your waters. I felt very fresh!

You're beautiful. A beautiful soul, so sure and peaceful! Have you finished yet? Is your mission complete? You've been such a force in our lives and your coming catalysed so much for so many, even now 2 years on, that I couldn't possibly recount.

I know you're off up to something because I don't hear from you anymore. Not since September last year, when I felt you RIGHT by me in the middle of the night when I woke to feel the strange sensation of that IVF pregnancy leaving me. You were right there, you know I know you were! Smiling. I'm not sure if you give me strength or just confirm the strength I have in me. I'd like to think it's the latter, because I wouldn't want to rely on you. But, wow, you've continued to open me up to some amazing things. I think the secret is to remain open isn't it, my girl?

I like to think of you as off somewhere, like a young adult who's gone travelling after leaving home. I can imagine you elsewhere in the world, the daughter who is so busy living she never calls home. But the distance and the inability to contact each other doesn't mean we're not connected does it? You chose us, we really are so blessed. We kissed goodbye two years ago but it was also one massive hello. It truly was. You're eternal. You proved to me that we are all eternal, and if we have the ability (because I think you must be a special powerful soul to be so loud!) and yet others still living have the ability to hear us, we sure can live on. I firmly believe that, having shared this experience with you.

I feel very very privileged to claim you. But you're not just mine. I knew that the moment I met you - you were here for everyone, not just us. My God. If only I'd known what that really meant..... lucky I didn't or I would've lost my nerve well before you left again. I never saw you as a baby, I still look at your pictures and don't really see a baby because I know you deeper than that, and I found it difficult to say you were "my baby". You were always Ella in conversations with nurses and doctors. It was uncanny the respect I felt for you, I didn't expect that. And just when I was starting to see you as more vulnerable, you left. It is very beautiful to me.

My darling, I do miss having you here so terribly much it still hurts. But only on this special day do I feel the sorrow. You know we still have work to do, and living, so you're happy in your place and I'm so glad you're there.

Love you more than any keys on a keyboard or words from my mouth could ever express. Just continue to feel it and reciprocate whenever you like.

Pucker up, buttercup

Why am I sooooo offended by the news today that Brad and Angelina (we're on first-name basis) are expecting???

Is it the fact that it just doesn't seem that long ago that doing the shopping was a covert operation for them so no one could see them together?

Is it the fact that the resultant child will have ridiculously plump lips with all those combined genes?

Is it because I am feeling for poor old Jennifer Aniston? As much as you can feel for someone you've never and will never meet and who has more expendable income than she knows what to do with wisely.

Is it because they already HAVE everything?

Why is it when you see a celebrity couple who's announced they're pregnant (is it possible for a couple to be pregnant? I've always giggled at people who say "we're pregnant" - surely it's just the woman who is, but that could be just me), if you've ever struggled to conceive yourself, you think "Oh heck even THEY'RE having a baby now" and want to wipe the smiles off their faces? I go through phases where I can't pick up a magazine for a lazy checkout flick because I am sick do death of seeing happy happy joy joy stories about these deliriously giddy new mums. It's a bit overdone don't you think? It's like those publishers just think that's all we want to hear and see! So sad to think that these women (cos they mostly are in these positions) don't consider their fellow women, the ones who are suffering infertility. How is a woman who can't get or maintain a pregnancy supposed to feel safe picking up a New Idea to inanely flick through the glossy gossip? She can't! It's impossible.

Don't get me wrong, I can see right through the paper-thin ideals of these publications that seem to think that all women who read them are taking a 10 minute coffee break from the vacuuming and ironing and getting husband's dinner ready, before she reapplies her makeup and fixes a bow in her hair and smoothes her apron so she can look refreshed to greet her shirt and tie-wearing dear husband at the door and take his briefcase for him. Of course women want to read nothing more than "I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life. My family is now complete with the arrival of Wilhelm Jake Cruise Wahkeen Bodiddly III". They're so see-through! The stories so similar! All they have to do is change the photos - which are also the same: celeb mum lying across pristine white bedspread with perfect, clean baby, both looking at camera. Or throwing baby up in the air, wide-pan shot so we can suitably ogle the star's sterile-clean, everything-in-its-place living room.

It's so unreal. Puts so much subliminal pressure on so many women to live up to that kind of ideal and feel unworthy if they don't.

Mags cheer me up somedays. They fill some sort of fluff-quota in me that I sometimes seek. I'll admit right now that I don't read them for the articles. It is all about the visual for me. But geez, I dunno, these prego star stories are just wearing so thin. Buzz off, Bec and Lley-Lley, please stop flaunting and go enjoy your baby in privacy. Tom and Kate? We-hell, I'll leave that right there.

And now Brad and Angelina? The impossibly wonderful, charity-giving, adoptive mega-uber-stupour-superstars now pregnant?

Please somebody make it stop.

Introducing... *trumpets heralding*

Jubjub.

Behold the blob that will make my dear Dad scratch his head, turn the scan 90º clockwise, then back 180º and say, "Where's its 'ead?"

...it's on the left, if any of you are too scared to enquire...*angry eyes*

There's something seriously wrong with me

I find dressed up dogs tear-streamingly hilarious. The bigger the dog, the better.

This photo courtesy of cuteoverload.com

Crisis averted

Ok, two people were made happy tonight.

I got to stop giving myself whiplash from checking over my shoulder for Kujo the huntsman.

And Steve got to see what happens to said new pet in the cyclonic action of the new Dyson. Hmmmm....

Time Check

IT. HASN'T. MOVED.

Not even a flinch.

So, that's:

Inches spider has moved since last post: nil
Work done since last post: Er....... next to nil

If I have to look at this, you do too

Shhhhh, aww! It's asleep, bless. *panting* Don't let the beauty of the sleeping beast fool you. They have sharp, pointy teeth, they suck your blood, they leave toilet seats up, they they they... steal small defenseless kittens and play push monkey with them behind shelter sheds.

I wonder if it's sitting over there above the bookshelf looking at me and thinking, "Holy SHIT! What is that big, loping, pasty, pudgy, hairy thing over there in MY house? Better keep my eye on it until Dave gets home with the kids so he can ..... 'get rid of it'...."

And if you're wondering why the shot's so blurry, well you just imagine an arachnophobe holding a camera up close enough to a huntsman so she can put it in as Exhibit A (when her husband comes home to find her quivering in a corner and asks why she got no work done), and that should just about explain it for you, dear blogee.


Oh and before any of you chortle about the book titles - yes, that most certainly is "What Katy Did" and the full L.M. Montgomery series of Anne of Avonsleigh/Greengables, and a bit of Pollyanna chucked in at the end for good measure. Never opened a single page of any of them, cross my heart. The Trixie Belldens and Hardy Boys/Nancy Drews to the left of that, however........

Home schooling

I wants me one of these for our little guys. Gee, that Albert is one smart pupil. Worth every sent of the US$12 to make your fish look like it was actually doing tricks (other than it being just that fishy habit they have of...you know....swimming past shit).

The harder they fall

I'm trying not to work myself up too much today.

Today is the last time I can formally say that I had my daughter "last year". It just becomes so hard to explain to people who ask if I have any children, and this will add to that difficulty. At least at the moment it's pretty much nipped in the bud with "yes, we had a little girl last January" (one poor fellow actually made a quip along the lines of "ho ho, you said 'had', I hope you still have her ho, ho..." - that conversation didn't end well) and then when they ask how old I can say "she died when she was 4 weeks old". Cue hasty downcast looks and very strong "Fuck why did I have to casually ask this woman if she has kids" vibes.

It feels like the more the years wear on, the more insignificant the loss of "only a four week old" will become. Ho, just believe me, there ARE such people out there who are flippant about these things. Tender and touching in the first months, but as time speeds by, the sympathies and delicate words are more fleeting. It's like the sentiments match our resilience - and now, well our resilience is heightened of course, because how could you live for two years and go out in the world and function if you were still as raw as the week in which you saw your husband hold his child while she took her last breath? It shouldn't make any difference, that we are forever moving further away from the event, but it just does.

So yeah. Feel flat. Feel deflated. Feel unwell (go, Jubjub, you good thing, go). On this night last year, we spent the most gut-wrenching, angst-ridden time. Standing watching the fireworks from our backyard - we live in what we call the Fireworks Capital of the World because from our vantage point we see at least a half a dozen displays on the skyline during the night - I cried and cried and cried more tears to the stars. I was in so much pain and there was nothing anyone could have done to comfort me. Steve was here but he too was pained by experiencing leaving our little girl behind, all alone in 2004 with only us to try and keep her memory alive. To make her coming worth it. It seemed such a huge task at the time. But I think we've achieved finding her a place in the world, to a far greater extent than even I envisaged, and in her own right, Ella has made her mark all by herself. We are merely the conduits for that massive soul's purpose to be made known. And my God, am I so grateful she picked us.

I cried also with fear of starting 2005 with the unknown: IVF. I was full of hope and cocky beginner's optimism that, surely, given my track record for getting up the duff, this IVF gig would be a breeze. It was as breezy as I could make it, let's put it that way, and we won't die wondering whether we shoulda, coulda, woulda. But it didn't end up being the Holy Grail for us, obviously.

I cried that I was drinking. I got wasted last New Years Eve. I figured I could, given that we had had to terminate another little girl via a d&c only the week before, so why the hell shouldn't I.

I cried that Ella's first birthday was only two short weeks away, and that "this time last year, in 2003" I had been sooooooo oblivious and happy, rubbing her through my belly and telling her, "We made it to 28 weeks, Boo! Now, you can come out anytime from now on. But not until you're ready." I think I was too convincing - how obedient she was. And friggen impatient. Just like her mum. We must've just been dying to meet each other, is all.

So this year, I won't say I won't cry. In fact, the tears are already hot and stinging, the little bastards. They're just waiting til darkness falls. I'll focus on the good things: I can't drink this year. My belly is growing. I have an unidentified growing foetus in my loins (who as yet, still has not made him or herself known to me, despite my occasional "knock-knock, anyone there"s...). I can celebrate the close of another year with my healthy, happy husband. I can enjoy watching Pepper howl at the firework cracks - oh how she's a scaredy-dog - and I can dream, for now, that this baby will be "the" one and perhaps only who gets lucky and comes to live with two of the most patient, accepting and tolerant people I can think of.

It's only 10 o'clock in the morning

...on his first day off work for two weeks. And already I want to kiiiiill hiiiim.

Look, sure, I'm positive it's because, despite having a very long solid sleep and sleeping in til 8am today, I am again dog tired (hey, I've showered, had breakfast and dried my hair, that takes a lot of wheeties) and my hormones have been switched to Evil today apparently.

But still. It went like this:

K: I'm waiting for that woman from Sydney to call so I can get my client off my back.
S: (nods slowly and methodically to the hum of the fan going above his head, agitatedly flicking the controls on his paused Playstation game and willing me with his eyes to leave the darkened bedroom so he could continue his driving quest)
K: Are you going to play that thing for two weeks? In here?
S: (still the nodding)
K: I know what you're gonna do, you're going to do the floors in the bathrooms. I don't think I could stand you just lying around for two weeks around me while I work.
S: What do you have to do today workwise?
K: Nothing! I'm bored. I've got nothin'.....
S: Ok. Well you go get the tape measure for the floors (starts up paused game).
K: But..... what're you going to do? What.... (excitedly, fuzzy prego brain registering that this means we're actually going to finally lay proper tiles in our bathrooms after 8 years of lino) I'll get the tape measure and I'll meet you in the bathroom!
S: (silence)
K: 'kay?!?? (hopping from foot to foot outside the bedroom door now) O-KAAAAAAY?!
S: Quiet! I'm doing 200 k's an hour.
K: (mopes off to blog the interaction)

'S gonna be a lonnnnnng Christmas break while my beloved is home.

O/D on THIS

I must thank the essential Amoir for alerting us to this website which I have taken great delight in, in just 24 hours. I've managed to laugh off about 2kg already.

In particular, the recent entries "Hello, WTF!?" and "Am I Funny To You?" - oh, I have serious bladder control issues.

Enjoy.

It started with a kiss

Like this...









And then she had to go and wreck it.

























I posed for the camera THREE times but the stupid little shit wouldn't keep her hat on and kept wrecking my shot.
Look at me in these photos, I don't move. Not a flinch! I'm such a pro... What do these people want? I'm obedient to a fault and yet the wriggly little nugget gets all the attention.

























And then, she wanted my friggin' perfectly-poised hat again!! WHY??! It's red, like hers. It has a pom-pom, like hers. But noooooo. Little Miss Cutesy I-Want had to get mine.









Aaaah, c'mon, it was SO you who took it off my head, I can see the red fluff in your mouth, Jazz, you idiot!









I am so-cute. I am so-cute.
*sings breathily* "Merr-y Chri-stmas, Mister Preh-sident..."









This is dumb. Christmas is dumb. Puppies are dumb.









Hey lady, what gives? Why doesn't she have to put her hat on? Why can't I get away with this crap?












Fine. I'll sit with the stupid hat on and not move. God, this is dumb.









Did I ever tell you how much I love Christmas?
*a little lower, little lower... thaaat's it*

Is this Hagrid's offspring?

Because I see a likeness.

Say 'Estelle' louder for me

No matter how many times over the years I've explained that it's pronounce Estee Lauder... you forget and call it Estelle Louder. I think you have genuinely forgotten the correct way to say it, I surely hope you have because it'll be a shallow early grave for you if you're trying to shit me, especially now.

And I understand a grown man of your high intelligence doesn't have the need nor the headspace to retain this information; after all, how many times will you need to mention the brand name of a perfume and makeup empire in your daily life? Not many.

Still..... one last time. ES-TAY LOR-DER. 'kay? Oh, and while we're at it, those things, on palms and ferns: they're FRONDS. Ok? Fronds. Not FRONGS. That sounds like a cross between a frog and a pair of Occa footware.