Feral George

Places a Scorpio should visit

2006-04-15T21:37:00.000+10:00

Here is a list that found one day listing all the places that a Scorpio should visit and which ones I've visited are in italics:

* Baltimore
* Cincinnati
* Dover
* Fez
* Hull
* Halifax
* Liverpool
* Milwaukee
* Newcastle-upon-Tyne
* New Orleans
* Stockport
* Washington DC
* Bavaria
* Korea
* Morocco
* Norway
* Poland
* Transvaal
* Uruguay
* USSR

I have no idea where I found this list and why those places were chosen. Should I feel compelled to visit them? What happens if I don't?

My head hurts.

The Great Blogging Debacle

2006-02-19T17:19:00.000+11:00

So it seems like the Great Blogging Debacle of 2006 is settling down. Lots of bitchiness, hurt feelings, threats and general high and mightiness. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's not worth knowing.

The one thing that pissed me off about the whole drama was the way that some bloggers kept referring to commenters who "kiss ass" or as "groupies". They show a lack of respect for their audience and treat commenters as if they are all brain-dead wannabes. And yet these same bloggers obviously love having an audience and keep their comments open. You can't have it both ways so my one message to them would be to show some respect to their readers, or they will find that the readers will dump them.

Pole dancing, paddy wagons and puking

2006-02-14T17:22:00.000+11:00

So I went away for my little sis' hen's (batchelorette) weekend this past weekend.

First stop was a private pole dancing class at Bobbi's Pole Studio. The pole dancing was great - it is a fantastic workout and I now have a great respect for pole dancers as it takes a huge amount of strength and flexibility to do what they do (mind you, I reckon the blokes who go to perv on them don't think about that!). Our teacher was lots of fun and had an amazing body and very little clothing. She did a pole dance for us at the end of the session and at one point was hanging on upside down with just her leg wrapped around the pole. We got to dress up in slutty costumes - I got to be "naughty schoolgirl" which was a bit more modest than most, probably because I was the oldest one there. There was lots of champagne flowing and it was fun and a good workout.

We then went to stay in a serviced apartment near the city. Our apartment had this amazing view over Sydney including the harbour and the harbour bridge, Opera House etc. We had more champagne and some Cosmopolitans while playing silly games and dressing up the "hen" is a veil and a sash.

Next we went off to go into the city to go drinking and clubbing. We were going to catch a bus but ran into some policemen and of course the girls start asking could they take a photo with the bride-to-be and then the chief bridesmaid asked the cops for a lift in their paddy wagon. The next thing I know there are 11 of us riding in the back of the paddy wagon across the city singing "we're going home in the back of a divvy van". So I can tick that off my list of things I've never done.

So after that it was drinks and more drinks at some bars and clubs where all the pretty people hang out. Sydney has a reputation as being quite shallow and stuck-up compared to other cities in Australia and it was quite obvious last night. Mind you, the advantage to being older is not being intimidated by pretty young things anymore and being able to stare down some of the bitches. We ended the night at a pub/club for a bit of dancing but by 2am I was tired and opted to go home with some of the girls. My sis and some friends stayed out until about 5am.

Unfortunately for my sis - she drank way too much vodka and was a very sick girl in the morning.

A librarian goes a pole dancing

2006-01-31T01:32:00.000+11:00

So today my shopping mission was to find an outfit to go pole dancing
in. My sister is getting married in about two months time and so her
girlfriends have planned a huge hen's weekend for her which includes a
pole dancing lesson at Bobbi's Pole Dancing Studio. Bobbi, it seems was
a professional pole dancer who was smart enough to catch on to a new
craze and start her own studio. They have lessons where you can learn
to pole dance or lap dance but they seem to specialise in hen's nights
- complete with alcohol. You can even do it with your workmates, but
somehow I can't see my fellow librarians getting into it.

Apparently it's the "in" thing to do at the moment - gone are the days
of "Studs Afloat" (ie a drunken harbour cruise where sexed up single
girls and the mother of the bride get to ogle ripped young men who are
probably gay). Or the theatre restaurant with bawdy jokes and carafes
of cheap sweet white wine - the most memorable included a scene where a
member of the party vomited on the table at the end of the night -
niiiice! Strippers are apparently passé and now embracing your
sexuality with a bit of slutty dancing is in (although you can still
hire an "exotic dancer" which sounds a hell of a lot like a stripper to
me).

I took a look at Bobbi's website and had a bit of a look at the hen's
night pics. It was good to see some "girls" in their trackies and it
looks like leopard print is in. I've been told to wear "hotpants" and a
singlet. Hmm, my 34 yo bod is not really up for a pair of hotpants but
I did manage to get a pair of short shorts instead. To achieve this I
had to go into lots of teenybopper cheap clothing stores where the
sullen shopgirls look you up and down and the music blares. The chicks
in Supré are the snobbiest, they think they are hot shit. But the funny
thing is that when I was a teenager you wouldn't be seen dead in Supré
- that's where my mum bought her leggings.

My apron shop

2005-12-31T17:04:00.000+11:00

Here is an ad for my BBQ Apron Shop. There are some funny aprons in there. Basically I've collected a whole lot of aprons from many Cafepress designers and sorted them into categories to make a one-stop shop for people looking for aprons as presents. Check it out!

Hot Hot Hot

2005-12-31T16:26:00.000+11:00

NYE and nowhere to go. Too hot to do anything and the beaches are either too full or overpoliced due to the recent riots. Crazy Cat has taken to sleeping outside all day in the 40C (that's 100F for you non-metric people) heat. Bloody stupid thing. Keep having to go out and wet her to keep her cool.

Road tolls

2005-12-26T22:11:00.000+11:00

So this is Christmas and the road toll is on the news every night. It's like a perverse sort of bingo. See which state will have the highest toll this year. I wonder if other countries have this? I doubt it, surely the road toll is too high given the larger populations.

It's beginning to feel a lot like a hot Xmas

2005-12-23T22:11:00.000+11:00

You know Christmas is fast approaching when:

- the outside temp is 40C but the temp in your car (which has been parked at the station all day in the baking sun) is at least 50C. It feels like a sauna, the steering wheel burns your hands as you drive and when you turn on the A/C it blasts searing hot air at you for the first 2 km so you feel like you have opened an oven door in your face.
- they are predicting temps of over 40C teamed with high winds - the perfect recipe for a bush fire
- Kamikaze Christmas beetles attack you when you walk outside at night
- the Fish Market is going to stay open all night and there's a rumour that the price of prawns has hit an all time high
- all the previous year's talk of changing the Xmas lunch menu to something that more befits the climate goes out the window and you decide (yet again) on roast turkey - in the 40C heat
- you wonder, yet again, why Australians insist on including carols such as Jingle Bells in carol services when there is a snowball's chance that you will ever witness a white christmas
- your husband talks of putting up the wading pool and kicking back with a beer after Xmas lunch

Head butting saga continues

2005-10-20T11:09:00.000+10:00

Day two of the cat head butting saga. Last night Crazy Cat spent
several hours in the garage because she couldn't work out how to get
back through the cat door. Have finally found some gaffa tape to tape
the flap back up. Should have saved money on buying the cat door and
just cut a hole thru the door!

My cat is dumb - so what's new?

2005-10-18T23:16:00.000+10:00

We keep the cat food and the shitty litter tray in the garage so that
certain young crawling babies don't eat cat biscuits or cat faeces
(ewww). Our garage has internal access to the house and we like to keep
the door closed to stop the baby from getting in and the cat turd odor
from getting out. So dh installed a cat flap door so that we don't have
to open and close it every 30 seconds ('cause for some reason cats
*need* to go in and out all.day.long). The only problem is that the
cats refuse to use it the way that it is intended, ie with the flap
down. They are too dumb or scared to realise that they can push their
way through and so the flap is taped open to leave a hole. Tonight the
tape broke and the flap fell down. So Crazy Cat spent 15 minutes
headbutting it before I realised that she wasn't just being a pain in
the arse LOL. I've taped it back up but don't know how long it will
hold - I wish they would learn how to use the thing!

more about cars and driving

2005-10-14T23:03:00.000+10:00

I think I'm on a bit of a roll with this topic but had to post one last
observation. I am constantly surprised and disturbed about the way some
people drive. Especially when they have kids in the car. All for the
sake of getting somewhere 5 seconds quicker. So today I'm driving to
pick up Loll from school. We live in a suburb that used to be a rural
area but is now becoming McMansion heaven. One of the fairly heavily
used roads has a quaint old one lane bridge which means that you have
to wait your turn to cross. (there's a sign NO PASSING ON BRIDGE which
is pretty redundant as it's so skinny that you couldn't possibly pass
anyone). Generally what happens is that you let about 5-8 cars pass and
then you go. It mostly works well. However today I stopped and waited
for about 5 cars to pass and then when the coast was clear I started to
head onto the bridge when this bitch in a Grand Voyager comes screaming
down the hill and looks like she is going to come onto the bridge so I
stop and sure enough she hurtles across. Bitch. If I hadn't stopped she
would have hit me. It pissed me off because she was rude and she had
kids in her car and was driving like a dickhead. God I hate dickhead
drivers.

Thinking while driving

2005-10-13T21:10:00.000+10:00

You know how they ban talking on mobile phones while driving because
it's distracting? Well what about thinking while driving. Time to
myself is pretty rare around here and although I'm often in the car
with the kids, it's not the same as being with them and entertaining
them - IYKWIM. So a lot of the time that I'm in the car I'm thinking
about this or that - most often thinking up new designs or new schemes
to take over the world. And then I realise that I'm driving on
autopilot or not really concentrating. I scare myself!

2005-10-12T22:48:00.000+10:00

I've been hit by a new obsession this past month or so. Cafepress. It's
like crack for people like me who yearn to be creative and love mucking
about with computers. Finally a legitimate reason to spend hours
playing around. My mini empire is expanding slowly - if only there were
enough hours in the night LOL.

One sad thing is that I broke our old reliable copy of Photoshop.
Killed it completely. Dead. Damn. So I downloaded a free trial of
Photoshop Elements. It's only Photoshop Lite but compared with my old
version it's like going from a 1966 VW to a souped up Commodore (and
you know how much I love those LOL). But alas, the trial came to an end
yesterday and it won't let me in. Damn. Now I have to actually buy a
copy but am waiting for dh to buy an academic version (at half price).
Not fair - I want to play!!

test

2005-10-12T22:06:00.000+10:00

Why do dickheads drive Commodores?

2005-07-14T17:03:00.000+10:00

This is a question that has been gnawing away at me lately. In the media and in conversation we always seem to hear derogatory comments about soccer mums or the Balmain set driving their Prados around like they own the streets. Granted, there's nothing I hate more than some big 4WD bearing down on me as I drive to school or parked next to me at the shopping centre so I can't see around them. But what about the dickheads in big V8 Commodores or Ford Falcons??!!I swear that around here every middle aged bloke seems to drive one and of course you can't stick to the speed limit - you have to drive right up someone's arse. They look so menacing with their sloped bonnets and shiny badges. They all think they are Peter Brock or something. To me they are just a middle age crisis wrapped in metallic paint and tinted windows.

And then there are the tradies in their ubiquitous white utes. There are a lot of construction sites around where I live and every day dozens of tradies tear around the corner of our quiet suburban street. I'm surprised that they haven't taken out a kid on a bike or some poor dog. If they aren't driving like dickheads (particularly at 3pm knock-off time which just happens to coincide with school pick-up - what a great combination on our roads, soccer mums in Prados, dickhead salesmen in their V8s and tradies in utes!!) then they are parked at a building site with some crappy radio station blaring out music.

Finally we have the garbage truck drivers who use our neighbouhood as some sort of test-track. Recently the council sent everyone in our street a letter slapping our wrists for placing our bins on the street and not the (non-existent) footpaths. And yet I've seen the garbos hurtle around in their juggernauts while talking on mobile phones on more than one occasion. If I could be bothered I would write a letter back to that officious council worker and tell them they should watch out for the garbos and stop worrying about one or two bins on the kerbside.

Did you plan to have such a big age gap?

2005-01-19T16:52:00.000+11:00

This must be the question of the year. Although it is a much easier question to hear and answer than "so are you planning to have another child?".

I have two children (it still seems funny to say that) but for a long time I didn't know whether I would or even could. I am a subfertile mother. To make matters more frustrating I have also been diagnosed as having unexplained secondary subfertility. This is a somewhat weird and overlooked category in the world of infertility and its treatment. I can fall pregnant - eventually. I just can't count on it happening the way a normal fertile woman can and yet I know that it is possible. When you fall into this category dealing with medical professionals can be aggravating as some will tell you to just give it time or you could even hear things like "parents with one child often don't have as much sex " which is what one GP told me when I asked for advice about my inability to conceive.

An old poem

2005-01-15T21:10:00.000+11:00

I used to want to write a novel but then I discovered that I can't really write all that well. Plus, I just don't have the determination to see it through. I found an old poem on my 'puter tonight - so I will self-publish:

TAXI METER

My love is measured
By the ticking meter
Of the taxi cab
Which he has summoned
to take me home.

Colgate flavoured kisses
As his toes freeze
On the cold concrete
Below
Signal the end
Of souls bared, secrets shared, beds shared
While the scent
Of hastily sprayed perfume
Marks another
Chapter of deception.

I want to stay
But obligation
Wrenches me away
As the taxi cab
Delivers me back to reality
But not to Life.

I like the first stanza but the rest is pretty crappy. I wrote it while I was first going out with my now hubby. I used to go to see him in his grotty little flat but would leave to go home late at night in a cab because I was working as a nanny and had to be there when the kids got up in the morning.

So the first stanza is about me but the rest is made up and hence not all that great.

I think I should stick to finding books for people rather than writing them!!

Footloose and Pox Free

2005-01-15T13:48:00.000+11:00

We have managed to escape the pox after a close call over Xmas. 21 days after exposure and no signs of spots. Time to get around to getting Loll's jabs done.

I think that the family dynamics have changed too after the pox episode. People have been called to account over their actions - something that has never happened in the past. Of course, now that we did not catch the pox after all (in spite of the irresponsible actions of the other party who brought their infectious child to Xmas lunch even though Frostie Boy was only 8 wks old) it may be that we will be portrayed as hysterical and overreactive. You can never tell with families.

One thing that I have learned from the whole schmozzle is to stand up for myself and trust my own instincts. I didn't say anything at the time and we took Loll and Frostie Boy to Xmas lunch against my better instincts. Of course, I still think that it should not have been left up to us to decide whether or not to attend - particularly as we had driven 300kms to be there. I just didn't want to be the whingey daughter-in-law yet again. But from now on I will play that role if need be as I don't want to spend another whole month in limbo waiting for signs of an outbreak.

The main players

2005-01-14T22:47:00.000+11:00

So in this troupe of players are three males, one female and two cats. Take notes as you may need to remember them in the future:

Males
dh and our two sons - Loll and Sabby

Female
me - Andy

Cats
crazy Kaboobie and feral George (hence the name)

A year can change everything

2005-01-14T22:11:00.000+11:00

Frostie Boy is asleep.

It is one year since we signed up to defrost him and give him a go. Sometimes it freaks me out to think that he was frozen. But then the whole IVF process is freaky and yet fascinating at the same time.

I've been reflecting on this past year today. I catch myself wondering why did it work? Why that one egg out of the ten they retrieved? Why that one embryo out of the three viable ones? Why did the FET work when the fresh cycle didn't?

I also feel guilty. Guilty that we called our future son a "dud embryo" when he was frozen in Oct 2003 - shouldn't we have been more positive? Guilty that I managed to achieve success when others that I know still haven't.

But glad to not be back in that dark place of a year ago.