Somebody’s trying to tell me something
Posted: May 6, 2013 Filed under: Self improvement, Single | Tags: alone and lonely late at night, desperate and dateless, Facebook advertising targeted at old ladies, lonely single mothers, Lonely Singles, perfect match, S-S-S-Single Bed - Noosha Fox, single policemen, Singles Ads, Targeted for being single Leave a commentEvery time I log onto Facebook or Hotmail or MyTwitFace or any kind of social networking sites late at night when my children are in bed and I’m feeling all alone (cue sad, lonely blues music) and crying into my cask of wine, I see ads popping up tempting me to log on and find my ideal man. The ads read something like this:
Find good looking single policemen in your area. I could dial 000, it’d be quicker and cheaper. When I got burgled recently I had five big policemen on my doorstep within twenty minutes and I didn’t have to sign up for endless emails.
Single and Christian? Find God’s Perfect Match for You. I found God’s matchmaking skills were way, way out. The guy who was apparently ‘ideal’ for me had a head like a brick and lived in Utah.
Come on a singles cruise. Great, so he can throw up on me at breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Why am I not excited by these ads?
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Your daughter is one
Posted: May 4, 2013 Filed under: LOVE | Tags: Births, deaths and attempted marriages, English female Victorian writers, female writers with male pen names, friendship, friendship is one of the great joys of life, George Eliot, girl gangs, girlfriends, long friendships, Marian Evans, May the fourth be with you, Robin Johnson, Sleaze Sisters, Times Square Movie soundtrack, Trini Alvarado, Your Daughter Is One 2 CommentsToday my kidlets and I are heading to the dark side, visiting my oldest friends in the place I grew up. My visa came through and I’m leaving the single mother ghetto to return to my old hood, the leafy tree-lined streets of my youth. I am reminded of this George Eliot quote:
“A friend is one to whom one may pour out the contents of one’s heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”
Today I will eat and drink and talk too much and argue with the gals who share my outspoken, feisty view of life. I breathed every minute of my angst ridden teenage years with them. 30 years later I realise I had no idea how much their laughter would sustain me through births, deaths and attempted marriages. Love is basking in the shared joy of old friends on a warm, sunny afternoon.
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Champion Mothering
Posted: May 1, 2013 Filed under: Clown Doctors, LOVE, Parenting | Tags: champion mothers, childhood illnesses, children's hospitals, honorable professions, mother goddesses, nursing, resilient motherhood, selfless mothering, Sinead O'Connor - 3 babies, the love and toil of motherhood, unconditional love 6 CommentsI’ve just been overseas on holiday. I had a break from the hospitals I work at which really helped me understand how lucky I am. I have a great job, my health, three well kids and tons of friends. The mothers I encounter in the hospitals where I work aren’t so lucky. These women are true champions. If there were a parenting Olympics they would win every medal and no one would question whether they were on performance enhancing drugs. Their events are the unglamorous side of mothering. Aiding your child in hospital is not something they do to gain kudos or attention or to show their children off in public.
These women daily win gold medals for most hours of sleep deprivation, after months spent on fold out chairs beside their children’s beds.
Their silver medals are for enduring what most parents avoid. Watching your child in excruciating pain and not being able to do anything about it except buzz the nurses and doctors for more pain meds is an event I don’t want to be a part of.
They gain bronze for leaving the hospital at all hours, early morning to late at night to find something else for their child to eat or to go shopping for toys that will distract their children from pain when they could be resting.
Some of them even manage to have a shower and brush their hair or put on a bit of lippy. I can’t manage that some days.
They could whinge all day long (I would) but they don’t. They are funny and resilient and strong and they sing and laugh with us when they could be crying in a corner. I feel humble in their presence. They are goddesses walking the earth. I will start a new religion to worship these ladies, and the nurses who serve them day and night.
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They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old
Posted: April 25, 2013 Filed under: AUSTRALIA, Theme Songs, Thought For the Day | Tags: 1915, 1983 Australian hits, ANZAC DAY, Ataturk, AUSTRALIAN HISTORY, dawn service, Gallipoli, Redgum - Only 19, remembrance, slouch hats, They grow not old, Turkish history, young and strong Leave a commentIn 1934, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the Turkish commander at Gallipoli, wrote a moving tribute to Anzacs who died at Gallipoli.
”Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives … You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side now here in this country of ours … you, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land. They have become our sons as well.”
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Happy birthday
Posted: April 24, 2013 Filed under: LOVE, Parenting | Tags: April 24 birthdays, Bob Marley - Three Little Birds Live, Don't Worry Be Happy, Happy birthdays Leave a comment11 years ago today I was hanging out the washing at 7.45 in the morning, by eight I was in hospital. By 9.30 a specialist turned up the volume on my drip, and an hour later she broke my waters.
“In pain, give me drugs now,” I howled as they ramped up the oxytocin. This labour was a harsh, hot, fast hell.
In a few hours my second beautiful princess was born, a little blue. After a four-hour whoa-to-go rushed induced labour, my five year old had the little sister she’d ordered. She rushed into the room as I sat in a pool of blood on the bed. When the midwife handed my baby back to me after clearing her airways, her big sister held her like she was a doll and looked at me with cocker spaniel eyes. Of course the nurse took photos. I had blood on my hands, a bird’s nest hairdo and wore an old bra. I look like a dopey possum in our happy family shots. Happy birthday beautiful girl.
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I Touch Myself
Posted: April 22, 2013 Filed under: AUSTRALIA, SONGS, Thought For the Day | Tags: 1985 memories, Australian female rock stars, breast cancer prevention, check your boobs ladies, Chrissie Amphlett death, fantastic female live singers and performers, in honour of Chrissy, passionate living, The Divinyls - Sleep Beauty, vale Chrissy 2 CommentsThis woman was an incredible live performer who lived it large. She rocked a school uniform like no one before or since. I remember seeing her at the height of her powers onstage in 1985.
In honour of this passionate woman, check your boobs ladies, or get someone to do it for you.
RIP Chrissie Amphlett, thanks for being a part of my youth.
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Don’t Dream It, Be It
Posted: April 19, 2013 Filed under: ART, Birthdays, LOVE, SONGS, Theme Songs | Tags: April 19 birthdays, don't dream it, English actors, great English films, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Tim Curry, Tim Curry Birthday Leave a commentWhen I was 15 I used to sneak out late at night with my girlfriends to watch the midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. We dressed up in tutus and high heels, we sang, we sweated, we laughed and we danced. And my mother never did find out. Until now. Years later I was working in London and the phone rang and I instantly recognised the voice on the other end of the phone. It was Tim Curry. I couldn’t speak so I passed the phone to a colleague who laughed when she realised who I should have been talking to. Thank you Mr Curry for the joy you brought to my teenage years. Rose tint my world, keep me safe from the trouble and pain.
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There is more than one Britney Spears
Posted: April 14, 2013 Filed under: SONGS, Theme Songs | Tags: autotune, child stars, children in advertising, commercials, dancing, modelling debut, raindrops keep fallin' on my head, shirley temple animal crackers, singing career, triple threat 2 CommentsUnlike Britney, I was a child star who didn’t live up to my initial promise. I did my first ad when I was six months old, a big fat roly poly baby lying nude in an underwear model’s arms. We were advertising ‘nursing’ bras and my job was to look cute and adorable (it was a stretch for me). Allegedly I peed all over her, I don’t think that is true, I can’t remember doing it. My mother swears it happened, but as she was once a young Liberal I’m not sure her testimony can be trusted.
One of my earliest and most favourite-est memories, (probably because my mum took a photo of me sitting on our lawn roller in our front garden) is of me singing Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head. My singing career started a couple of years after my modelling debut. I was wearing a cowboy hat that didn’t match my tutu. I used to sit on the grass roller looking fabulous between my shows. I preferred to play to intimate audiences rather than at larger venues. Singing was my thang, especially entertaining my mother’s friends as I stood on our dining room table in patent leather shoes, or warbling on our front fence. I also gave impromptu performances riding side saddle on my rocking horse on our front verandah, just to show my versatility as a ‘triple threat’ as they say in acting parlance. In the days before Autotune I was a magnificent singer. Who said all child stars grow up to become problem adults? Not me.
Yes this is child star Shirley Temple, she was WAY before my time but I didn’t copy her once in my stellar career appearing on book covers, in newspapers and magazines and live for a limited season on our front lawn.
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If you look like your passport photo you need the trip
Posted: April 9, 2013 Filed under: TRAVEL | Tags: adventures with kids, elephant rescue, holidays, life is a great adventure, long overdue holidays, single parent adventures, Summer In Siam, The Pogues, traveling with kids 6 CommentsToday we head for a family adventure, visiting my big brother and his elephant friends. My two youngest kids have never been overseas before so this is a scary and exciting day for them. Hopefully I can show them that travelling is one of the great joys of life.
“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open” – Jawaharial Nehru
Perhaps travelling with three kids, one of whom likes eating the same sandwich every day, will test my limits as a mother and make me appreciate the dull routine and comforts of home. Maybe I’ll pretend they’re not with me when my youngest talks to everyone on the plane. Maybe when we come back to Australia I’ll be taken to a home for the bewildered. And maybe I’ll throw away some of my emotional baggage somewhere over the ocean.
“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move” –
Robert Louis Stevenson
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Cursi
Posted: April 6, 2013 Filed under: LOVE Leave a commentI love this post, especially the last paragraph.
I went to a party the other night, and we were all having a merry old time. One of the guests started playing the guitar, and someone asked if he knew any songs by Ricardo Arjona. No, not Arjona, I pleaded. ¡Es muy cursi! Judging by the immediate chorus of indignant gasps and protestations, I had touched a nerve. More than merely defensive of the singer, they took issue with my epithet of choice. ¿Y qué tiene de malo eso, ser cursi? I didn’t stop there. Es más, I said. I’ve found that Hispanics on the whole tend to be much more cursi than Americans. Well, that was it. Se armó la de Troya. The women were then up in arms. Oh, what does she know about love? She’s just a cold, heartless gringa. How could she ever understand the way we Latinos feel and express ourselves? No…
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