Ay Corona
Posted: March 28, 2020 Filed under: AUSTRALIA, Politics, Self improvement, Thought For the Day | Tags: auspol, climate change, corona virus, covid 19, death to trickle down economics, human behaviour, pale stale male Australian politicians, pollution, single mother dreaming, single mother struggles, wake up call 6 CommentsCall me a bloody hippy, but much good will come out of this time of corona madness. A whole new world is waiting to be born
We have stopped buying plastic crap we don’t need that is shipped here from overseas
All children may get access to good schooling and new technology
We will stop working in jobs we hate to buy crap we think we want
People have stopped injecting their bodies with botulism toxin
Maybe we will finally close the gap and have good health outcomes for our first nations people
Kids who aren’t neurotypical and don’t fit into our one size fits all school system will have other options for learning
Neighbours are looking after lonely, elderly folk because they’re not at work all the time
Billionaires and foreign companies who make massive profits may actually have to pay some tax to put money back into society.
People have stopped adding plastic to their fingers and breathing in solvents painted on their toes
Foxtel may go bust with no live sport being played; good riddance Rupert
People will wake up and realise that housing is a human right, not an investment opportunity. We may get rid of over blown rents, negative gearing and have housing that is fair for all
Families will spend quality time together; eating, arguing and singing
The planet will breathe while we’re not stampeding through every river and canal throwing plastic bottles into the sea
We finally appreciate and give thanks to doctors, ambos, nurses, teachers, garbos, shelf stackers, child care workers, aged care lovelies, check out chicks and roosters and start to honour how they keep our society going with their hard work
We will stop buying too many clothes, and not prop up an industry that exploits too many underpaid workers in countries that have no labour laws.
We will grow our own food, share with our neighbours, distribute goods according to need
We will live according to the seasons and honour the ebb and flow of mother nature
We may start to fund our scientists and actually listen when they impart their knowledge
We will swap clothes with our friends, mend and repair broken bits and bobs and remember that compulsive shopping doesn’t fill our hearts
We will crave our connection to nature and appreciate every blade of grass once it is safe to be back in the world
Without organised religious gatherings, people will start to question their beliefs and maybe not hide the paedophiles
We may realise that we don’t need the latest technology to be happy
200,000 poker machines are now sitting idle
We will discover we don’t need to pollute the planet with balloons at gender reveal parties, we can actually live with surprises
We will wake up and stop listening to and voting for greedy mad men who can barely turn up to do their job and finally decide to elect visionary leaders
We can no longer queue and panic buy phones and shoes and other stuff that we really can live without
Huge floating Petri dishes have been stopped from polluting precious cities and oceans across the world
We will have time to dance and sing together (online) and tell our stories and have time with our babies without having to rush off to feed the planet destroying capitalist beast
People will find out the real value of a dollar or a euro and realise that the share market is a house of cards, favouring only the fortunate
And the dolphins and the fish and the worms and the birds will come out of hiding and say ‘what took you so long silly humans?’
This revolution will be televised
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Appetite, a universal wolf
Posted: March 22, 2020 Filed under: FOOD, Single Motherhood | Tags: budget cooking, cheap and cheerful cooking, corona virus, covid 19, handy hints, self helpless, single mother advice, single mother sanity, single mother tips Leave a commentDear corona peppers, welcome to the world of living on a very tight budget AKA single motherhood.
Even though I’m busy preparing burnt offerings and microwave friendly salads, I’m offering you my FREE tips on feeding your family on a VERY limited budget.
Suggested menu:
1. Take it or leave it
2. ‘Imaginative’ recipes from ‘150 Ways With Baked Beans cook book
3. Repetition is king; 16 year olds love the same boring dishes; I’m a monster of the mash, a shaman of the sauce bottle, a magician with mince.
4. Tell your kids your family has been invited onto a reality TV cooking show, then vote yourself out of the kitchen. Hide.
5. Now is a good time for your kids to learn to cook
7. Like it or lump it
9. Remember the child standing in front of the microwave gets the most.
10. It is not a crime to send your 16 year old to the local RSL with a fake ID to win the meat tray because the slab of dead animal will feed your family for a week. Do it tonight before the government closes all clubs.
Vive le revolution
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2020 vision
Posted: December 31, 2019 Filed under: LOVE, Self improvement, Thought For the Day | Tags: 2019 resolutions, 2020 hopes and dreams, 2020 vision, dancing, NYE 2019, singing, single mother advice, single mother dreaming, single mother tips, single mother truths 2 CommentsThe Pollard definitive guide to enjoying 2020:
Pat puppies and kiss kittens
Don’t vote for morons
Eat, drink and be merry
Don’t buy ‘beauty’ products
Stay off the internet
Help a refugee family
Read books
Unsubscribe
Stop buying plastic crap
Thank firies, ambos and nurses
Check your emotional baggage
Get fresh on the dance floor
Support the Uluru Statement
Be kind, even to dickheads
Don’t use the words onboarding, textural or disruptor
Buy the Big Issue
Sing every day
Bring home the facon (don’t harm piggies)
Love your friends
Swim in the ocean
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The greatest of these is love
Posted: November 3, 2019 Filed under: LOVE, Parents | Tags: ageing, bible verses, dementia, Frank Sinatra, gratitude, grief, Jack Pollard, joy, love, love and marriage, MOTHER'S DAY, parenting, resilience, single mother role models 6 CommentsWhen I tell people my mum has dementia they invariably say,
“Does she still know who you are?”
She does when I hug her and hold her close and tell her I love her. Her brain may not remember my name but her body can feel that she loves me. I know it.
The gift of dementia is that I have had four years to say goodbye to my beautiful mama. Four years to create new memories and remember some of her old ones. To hear the same stories again and again so the family history is firmly locked in my brain until it is my turn to fade away.
Four years to hold her hands and tell her that she is still a devoted mother. Four years of visits to calm the madness rush of single mother life in my head while I put her hand in mine. Four years of quiet afternoons to sit with her in silence while I rub hand cream into her old dry hands. Four years of cups of tea and bickies. Four years of running away from the nursing home in tears with a broken heart while remembering all the small ways she loved me. Four years to be reminded how she cared for our dogs, yelled at me over homework, washed our clothes, fed us endless dinners and sang in the kitchen.
Mumma loved her career before kids but she loved us more. Her four kids and seven grandchildren were her life’s work. Having our family was the greatest joy of her life.
Four years of stories shared with whoever else came to visit. Four years being able to take in her I am your mother and I’m not going anywhere fierceness, and four years to realise that I don’t care any more about our differences, fights over my clothing and hairdos and politics, I feel grateful that she cared enough to argue with me.
Four years to look at old photos and realise what she built for us. Four years to be reminded that she introduced me to Stevie Wonder and Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald and taught me how to sing.
My mum interviewed Squizzy Taylor and met Frank Sinatra and talked to colourful Sydney racing identities and was invited to all the best parties when she wrote the social pages. And still my dad, my brothers and sister and I and our kids were the best part of her life. Not all kids get to have a mumma like mine.
Some families have their loved ones snatched away in an instant, but I’ve had time to be with her and hug her tight and tell her how much she means to me.
In the past year she has wet her pants and worn her clothes backwards and spilt dinners and tea all over herself. She has let her hair go and not worried about matching her top with her skirt. All the petty little problems of life have slipped away and all that remains is that my mum’s face lights up when my kids and I walk in the room. That is love.
I know my dad is coming to get her soon, they will get to be together again and I have to remember that on the days that I’m missing her so much that I can’t breathe.
My mum was from a family of godbotherers, devout Anglicans who often quoted the bible. This is the only verse I remember from years of reluctant Sunday school attendance (Corinthians)
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
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Single mother To Do List
Posted: August 12, 2019 Filed under: Self improvement, Single Motherhood | Tags: Advice for single mothers, mental health of single mothers, single mom struggles, single moms, single mother advice, single mother delusions, single mother sanity savers, single mother self help, single mother truths, Single motherhood, single mothers with attitude Leave a commentFeed munchkins
Laugh with best girlfriends
Verify your identity
Be fabulous
Embrace single motherhood
Pay all the bills
Find all the thrills
Bring home the bacon
Find app to block people in real life not just social media
Eat fruity wine and fruity fruits
Rage against the pale stale males in government
Stand up for girls
Find someone to collect my emotional baggage
Dance like instagram is watching
Drink tap water
Pat the cat
Thank your knees
Eat all the cheese
Hunt and gather
Educate people on the difference between your and you’re and he is and his
Sing like I’ve got 45 million YouTube followers
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Daddy’s girl
Posted: July 31, 2019 Filed under: LOVE, Parents | Tags: Australian authors, great fathers, Jack Pollard, Jack pollard journalist, Jack Pollard OAM, love, single mother advice, single mother struggles, sportswriters Leave a commentDear father who art in heaven
Happy 93rd birthday. Today I wish your body had stayed around longer. You were a devoted da and a workaholic. I love you Jack Pollard. You taught me:
*To do what I love for a living – Dad wrote/edited over 100 books
*Travel opens your mind
*A sense of humour will help you in the darkest days of your life
*A good swim in the ocean can clear your mind
*Hard work is good for the soul
*A tough childhood doesn’t define the rest of your life
*Even if you haven’t had your own dad, you can achieve a lot
*Dancing a slow tango in the kitchen is magical
*Kids raised by single mums are tough
*A full fridge means you are doing really well
*Stray dogs are worth rescuing
*Some days we must get up and go to work even when we think we can’t
*Singing love songs is great for families
*Lovingly made freshly squeezed orange juice is better than an expensive restaurant breakfast
*Taking your kids back to your old childhood haunts opens their eyes
*Listening to the stories people tell you will help you learn about the world
*Love is a verb
*Singing to your kids at bedtime may soothe them or freak them out
*Saying yes to new adventures is scary but
worth it
*Everyone looks good in a snappy suit
*Never let the truth get in the way of a good story
17 long years without you have gone by in a flash. I would sacrifice a few of my fingers and toes to see one of your cheeky smiles, hear your laugh and have a hug.
My dad was the Prince of Kings Cross
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Izzy go fund yourself
Posted: June 22, 2019 Filed under: AUSTRALIA, Self improvement, Uncategorized | Tags: Australian rugby, bigots in the belfry, crowd funding, fake christians, fundamentalist Christians, go and fund yourself, god botherers, hate speech, Israel Folau, Justin Bieber, liars, rugby, thieves in the temple, what would Jesus do Leave a commentAnd all the clubs you used to fund your own ends
You think rugby will be lost without you, oh Iz for goodness sake
You think we’re crying ’cause you stopped playin’ well we ain’t
And Izzy we’ve moved along and I think you should too
Aussies don’t like you and we like everyone
And you for-profit-Christians won’t admit when you are wrong
You get so caught up in your hate, you can’t see what’s going on
But now we know, you’re better playing on your own
Well Izzy you should go and fund yourself
And if you think that we’re still holding on to you
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Crikey
Posted: March 10, 2019 Filed under: AUSTRALIA, Politics | Tags: auspol, Australian Politics, feminism, International Women's Day, marketing, oops, pale stale male Australian politicians, political failures, where the bloody hell are you Leave a commentOn Friday, the Stephen Bradbury of the Liberal party Scott no friends Morrison made the worst International Women’s Day speech in the history of forever.
Simple Scotty said that men should not have to make way for women’s empowerment.
On International Women’s Day.
“We’re not about setting Australians against each other, trying to push some down to lift others up,” Morrison told a function organised by Australia’s mining industry.
“We want to see women rise. But we don’t want to see women rise only on the basis of others doing worse.”
On International Women’s Day.
What I love most about Scott no friends’ latest idiot utterance is that Labor don’t really need to do anything during this election campaign. Scott has placed his feet in concrete boots and the LNP ship is sinking faster than the rats can run. And it’s all his own doing.
As a rugby league man, Scotty the super fit sporty PM may not understand the concept, so here is the dictionary definition of ‘own goal’:
noun
1. a goal scored when a player inadvertently strikes the ball into their own team’s goal.
• INFORMAL•BRITISH
an act that unintentionally harms one’s own interests.
Ex liberal MP Julia Banks told a gathering at a separate IWD event that Morrison’s leadership style was akin to “Mad Men crossed with House of Cards.”
Just when the Australian people thought that Tone deaf Abbott defending a paedophile was beyond, along comes good old boy Scotty to make sure they’ll be in opposition for a long time. As we say in the land of Oz, “hold my beer.”
Now that you’ve stopped the votes, where the bloody hell are you retiring to Scotty? Time to book your place at the Hillsong happy clapper home for bewildered dinosaurs 🦖🦕
#AusPol
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God only knows
Posted: March 3, 2019 Filed under: Politics, TRAVEL | Tags: Bible, Catholic church, charity, child abuse, faith, George Pell, Hope, human suffering, Jesus and the money lenders, love, Miranda Devine, poverty, priests who abuse children, so called Christians, Vatican, Vatican treasures, what would Jesus do Leave a commentIn 2017 I was lucky enough to visit Italy and I went on a tour of the Vatican. The impenetrable wall around Vatican City and numerous security cameras screamed inclusiveness to me. In the Vaticano museum, there are priceless works from an immense collection built up by Popes throughout the centuries, including some of the most renowned classical sculptures and important masterpieces of Renaissance art in the world. They own paintings by Leonardo, Van Gogh, Raphael, Picasso, Chagall and Dali for God’s sake. Why won’t the Catholic Church sell some of these artworks and antiquities to help the victims of child abuse by their priests? Or perhaps the world’s starving and homeless? When the gap between rich and poor has never been greater, why are ‘good Catholics’ paying for statues to be made and shipped from all over the world to an already over-stuffed museum? They could wipe out a generation’s problems with a few garage and property sales around the world. So why don’t they?
My visit was a few days before Pell was charged. After his arrest, in St Peter’s Square there were polizei, army and carabinieri on every corner and tourist monument. Pell was hidden away. Who could blame the poor victims who for years were ignored, if they decided to revolt against these monsters in power?
20% of Christian brothers are guilty of perpetrating or covering up child abuse. The Catholic Church pays to protect paedophile priests but argues over paying compensation to their victims when money for shelter and counselling could alleviate the suffering of those whose childhoods were robbed by sick perverts.
The Australia-wide Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse delivered its final recommendations in December 2017. More than 60,000 abuse survivors came forward. The suicide rate amongst males in Ballarat (Pell’s home city) is twice that of Melbourne. But still, some in the Catholic Church believe that their religion is being unfairly targeted. This is the organisation where all serving archbishops told the royal commission they would not report to police a colleague who admitted in the confessional to child rape.
And scumbag journalists with zero credibility defend them.
Members of the media who defend child rapists must be sacked. And a truly visionary pope who wanted to help victims would be a great start.
The church asked Catholics to pay for Pell’s defence team, they helped Pell raise money but try to avoid payment to victims. They initially refused to put in an interim care scheme and a lot of the Catholic diocese’ say they ‘intend’ to sign up for the redress scheme, despite lobbying government to cut it down. Something is seriously wrong with this supposedly moral institution. It’s almost as if paedophiles (and alleged paedophiles) are taken care of but not the victims. Jesus would kick these greedy money lenders out of the temple.
“And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.”
What the Catholic Church is really worth
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The Trumping Show
Posted: February 10, 2019 Filed under: Politics, WRITING | Tags: American politics, bad TV, Donald J Trump, Ivanka Trump, Nancy Pelosi, nightmares, Politics, reality television, reality vs real life, scary TV, The Truman Show, White House, white trash Leave a commentI don’t watch much television, but the current top rating show coming out of Washington has me shaking my head in wonder at the scripting and production values. There is not enough animation, and Donald J Trump in the starring role of lead narcissist is too cartoon-like to be real. His skin is too orange and his suits too ill-fitting to be presidential. I’m starting to think that the US TV and movie-making industry has inflicted on us the most bizarre reality show the world has ever seen. We have been tricked into thinking that schlock TV favourite Donald Trump is actually the president of the United States. The wife who is only trotted out for photo opportunities role played by Melania adds drama, but her acting skills aren’t great. Through incredibly staged press briefings we have been lead to believe that the Orange Creep’s handbag designing daughter Ivanka is a foreign policy adviser and that this bizarre family actually sometimes live at the White House.
There are some great episodes of the show. The Singapore scenes with the actor playing a North Korean despot were brilliantly staged, despite the lack of plot resolution. And I do love Nancy Pelosi in the pivotal role of lead shit stirrer. Her cameo at this week’s State of The Onion address must be nominated for an Emmy award and a Nobel Prize.
In an era where white trash families and country bumpkins dominate our television screens, the Trump family are reality TV royalty. Candid Camera started this trend but it may be time to stop giving idiots so much air time. The Loud clan were the first reality TV family, let’s hope the Mar-a-Lago Trumps are the last. Honestly America, it is time to take out the trash. Bigly.
loupollard 