Ten years ago today this happened:

U.S. 2003 U.S.A. Cigarette Taxes Nov. 8th, 2003 : Native to non-native cigarette taxing was schedule to take place soon in the state of New York. However, a print announcement was made this day in 2003 regarding the delay of this decision, as discussed on the day before. 

WHAT?

Anyway, there was also a lunar eclipse.

The Bledisloe Cup was on in Melbourne.  Some chunky dudes ran around for a bit, and crashed into each other. Someone won.

Most importantly, this happened:

I let this guy come to my wedding:

That was a pretty good decision by me.

These fairies were there:

I rocked up in a mini-bus (as you do.)

And there was a fair bit of this:

At this:

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, apparently once said this, “Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”  I like that, I like it a lot.

By the time you read this, The Ashers will be all frocked up, and promenading along Noosa Beach.  We might look a bit silly in our ten year old clobber.  My halo tiara might be a bit tarnished, my dress a bit worse for wear, and my veil pretty much shredded, but I guess that’s how things roll, ten years on.  Still, with a bit of spit and polish, we should scrub up okay.  Much like life really.  We’ve added a few wrinkles and a few scars and one or two grey hairs, but I suppose that means we are living a life.  And more than a few of those wrinkles are from laughter.

I love you Nath.  You make me want to be better.  And you’re more than this little black cloud deserves.

Here’s to putting a few scores on our board.

I have pretty ordinary eyesight, so I’m a bit fussy about all things vision related. I wear contact lenses most of the time, because  I have more glass in my specs than a good, solid crystal whiskey glass.  Forget the saying “like the bottom of a Coke bottle”, I’ve got the whole slab.  So my contacts are always well kept, my glasses pristine, and my sunnies polarised.

But this is not a story about my failing eyesight (no I will not be getting LASER any time soon: too scared. No I don’t need bifocals yet: long arms.)  It’s a story about sun glasses.

My last sunglasses were Ray Bans, and I got them about three years ago.  They weren’t cheap, but they’ve done well. Unfortunately I dropped them on the tiles ABOUT EIGHT MONTHS AGO, and I have been wearing them with a massive crack just below my line of vision ever since. I live in Queensland.  So that means I wear them every.single.day.  With a crack.  It was driving me bonkers initially.  And then not so much, because I sort of filtered it out, and looked around it.  Just like the dirt on my floor and the frown lines on my forehead.  I know they’re all there, but hey, we can live in harmony right?  A little scotoma here and there never hurt anyone.

Nathan goes through sunnies like, well, like they’re going out of style.  Partly because he is a fashion fiend, but mostly because he’s a chippy, and he often gets chippies (see what I did there?).

Friday is our 10 year wedding anniversary, and usually we don’t really do a present thing, but this year we decided to get new sunnies. To sweeten the deal, Nath did some work a while ago for a dude who owns a sunglasses shop.  The dude is really lovely, and implied, with a nudge and a wink, that he would “look after us” when we next needed some shades.  So off we trotted.

Before I go any further you must see what I got:

This is the box. All the shiny.

…And this is all the crap inside the box… Gucci cleaning cloth, Gucci certificate of authenticity… In it’s own little envelope.

The handsome case… That will be all scratched to hell in about a week.

Can you believe that shit?  I’m just gonna chuck ’em in my bag, face, bag, car, bag, carseat… And you would be right in thinking that all of those accoutrements drove the dollar value up a bit.  But I wasn’t worried, Old Mate was doing us a deal.  Nath chose some crazy glasses that pilots wear, made my NASA or some such. They’re unbreakable, and I suspect they can brew you a macchiato should you feel inclined.  Again: not worried, we were in the know.

Until we got the bill. We were not so much in the know as in the shit.  We had cash, but NOT THAT MUCH CASH.  With a nod and a wink, our contact looked at the tally and said “I’ll give you a discount.”

Cool (whew).

He gave us fifty bucks off.  FIFTY.

The fact that I am whinging about what sounds like a decent discount, should alert you to the fact that THESE SUNNIES COST A SMALL FORTUNE.  We felt sick, but were too embarrassed to say anything more than a mumbled “Thanks”, and then we beat it out of that joint.  I’m only just coming down from the rush of spending so much money on non-prescription eyewear.

So if you see me, be sure to notice the Gucci badge on the arms.  Because according to our mate, “That, darlink*, is what you are paying for.”

What wankers we are.

*He didn’t really say darlink.

Have you ever spent up big thinking you were getting a discount?

Got any sunnies that could feed a small nation?

I mentioned here yesterday that I have a problem with loss.

So in the interests of full disclosure, I think I should also reveal I have a problem with shoes. Not in in losing shoes, mind, in finding them.  It appears from the straw poll I performed this morning regarding how many shoes other people actually own, I may* have a problem.  Not a massive problem, just a little one.  Or, not so much little, as errr… Well you be the judge.

Here are my shoes:

42 pairs, give or take.. Mainly give, as I found four more pairs after this photo-shoot, and I remembered I left another pair at a mates house in Melbourne last time I was there…

In my defence, I live in Queensland, and it is quite hot, so I require lots of thong-sandal-flimsy kind of shoes. It does however cool down in the Autumn, so I do require a few shoes for that change of season. In addition I am likely to go to Melbourne at least once a year, so I require black things and warm things to do that.  Plus, there is the fact that I like to give the impression of being kind of casual-sporty, so I have no choice but to have a pair or several of Cons. (You may notice there is one pair of actual running shoes. I wore those in 2011, and I will say they were very comfortable that day.)

So there you have it.  This is what the shoe situation is like for a person with many and varied tastes.  I would also like to remind you, before you mock my abundance, that I wear every single pair of these shoes, except the white wedding shoes, but I will wear those this Friday.  These shoes are my friends and allies.  I have The Menopause, so sometimes it is impossible to find anything to wear that makes a girl feel good. My feet are never fat, and my shoes never fail me.

I have a bit of a problem with loss. Not things, I have two primary school aged kids, I’m down with that, I mean people.

In 1994 I watched a movie called ‘The Sum of Us’, and there is a scene, not really related to the rest of the movie at all, where two ‘Spinster Aunts’ are sent off to different nursing homes by their families.  The scene is in black and white, and in my memory it has them being torn apart, gnarled hands clutching and trying to hold together, voices wailing as their hearts break open.  That scene had me sobbing like it was my hands, my love, my loss.

In 1993 I read ‘Bridges of Madison County’.  “Over-stated romantic claptrap”, I hear you say.  Not me.  I was crying so hard, so vigorously at the sense of loss and injustice at the unrequited love, that I physically couldn’t read it, I was so blurred and bumpy.  I even shed a small tear when Clint and Susan portrayed it at the pictures, albeit not as much.

In 1983 I saw ET.  You know it: I was a blubbering mess when ET went home. I know, I know, he was ugly.  I know, I know, I should have been relieved he was leaving the clutches of Keys and the scientists, but ET.  Home.  No more Ell-i-ott.

In the late 70s I saw Lassie Come Home at the drive-in.  I was beside myself, bawling in the early scenes when Lassie, in fact, did not come home. I can’t remember the rest, I guess it was redemptive and Lassie went on to make many more movies, solve crimes or whatever she did (what did she do?) but I have no recollection of that.  All I have is the loss, and the tears, and my Dad trying not to laugh at what a big baby his no-crying daughter was turning out to be.

Because that’s it. I have a no-cry policy, for the most part. If you’ve seen me cry, you’ll know why, it’s not delicate or pretty or endearing at all.  It’s all snot and dribble and red eyes and rivulets of mascara.  And if I get started I just might not stop.  Ever again.

As much as I’m not good with movie loss, I’m not good with actual loss.  Particularly death.

I don’t really know how to handle it, so in order to keep my no-cry policy upstanding, I have to trick myself that they are still alive and I’m just not seeing them today.  Or the next day, and on and on, forevermore.  I try not to think about it too much, but the problem is, I keep getting shocked when the loss hits me.

Today I looked at the teapot BabyMac gave me when Hayls died, and instead of being uplifted and happy to receive such a thoughtful gift, I just cried.

I won’t be having any more cuppas with Hayley.  Or my Dad.  Or Nath’s Dad.  Or Ricki or Jane or Sam or Marjorie or Melby or Jean or Jack or Sandra.  The roll-call of the dead.

I have something in my house to remind me of every one of my lost ones. Things that I just can’t throw out.

However, last week I decided I would throw out some of my Dad’s clothes that I scavenged when Mum was ready to let that stuff go.  I kept the last things I bought him, I don’t know why that’s what I kept, it’s not as though they were the best of times when he was wearing those last shirts and shorts, but I did.  They didn’t smell like him any more, and they were taking up space, so I put them in a bag and took them down to the garage for my next trip to the Salvos.  Then I changed my mind and brought them all back up.  Then down again.  Then back up.  I don’t want those clothes any more.  They aren’t him, in fact they never were.  No trace of him is left on them, but if I don’t keep them, what is there left to mark his place in my life?  If I throw them away, will I be throwing away one of my memories?

I’m scared of running out of them.

And I have a bit of a problem with loss.

Today The Ashers went to a children’s water paradise.  Wake-boarding, inflatable things to climb on and over, and fall into the water from great heights, ice-creams.  It was the Almost Anything Goes of the Sunshine Coast. It was fantastic.  It looked a little like this:

In fact it looked exactly like this

Clearly I didn’t choose this as a way to spend my (preferably) lazy Sunday, but sometimes as parents we don’t get to choose.  Not really.  We have to DO things.  And stuff.  Sometimes those things turn out to be fun, and sometimes they are a bit shit.  Today was fun and shit.

There we were, thunderbird-running along one of the pathways, and trying not to slip over, when I spotted it.  One lump and a bigger lump.  Brown.  Lumps that a women who has toilet trained two children would recognise immediately: toddler turd.

Quick as a flash, and before I even really knew what I was doing, I flicked that crap into the water with my toe.

Then: ewww.  Why did I do that? The water logs were now waterborne.  In the water we were swimming in.  And I’d kicked some turd that didn’t belong to anyone from my gene pool, into the pool.  Just: ewww.

And with that, Coco fell off the side and into the water. Again.

“Quick Coco, swim to the edge, quick, grab my hand, get back onto the raft, AND DON’T OPEN YOUR MOUTH!” I was screaming like a woman deranged, it was like that scene from Jaws 2 when Sean almost gets chewed by the shark. Except there was no shark. Just a toilet truffle.

Coco’s big blue eyes were like saucers as she grabbed my trembling, outstretched hand.  I started dragging her back up onto the slippery, slippery plastic inflatable…

Here we are, almost there, I had her half up, almost safe, then missed my footing, and slipped into the liquorice lake.

OHHHNOOOOTHEHORROR.

We swam through the mire, that I prefer to think of as little clumps of mud, mouths clamped shut, trying to breathe the tiniest bits of air, lest we inadvertently inhale poo particles.  I even tried to keep my ears shut.  (Can you keep your ears shut?)  We tried anyway, just in case tympanic membranes aren’t patent.

You’ll be happy to know we were eventually able to make it out of the cesspit, and so far, we aren’t showing any ill-effects other than my imaginary sore throat.  I’m thinking I will hit the tequila bottle pretty hard tonight, just to kill off the e.coli, mind.  And if I have enough lick, sip, sucks, I won’t know if I’m crook from the old el Toro, or the old el Turdo.

How about you, have you even swum in a dunny?

How was your Sunday, was it as fancy as mine?

So here it comes… If life was a mix tape, and I was your DJ (which I would be, because: bossy) this is what we’d be groovin’ along to:

The Hits:

1.  FINALLY we had some rain on the Sunshine Coast.  Amazing lightning on Wednesday night, with heaps of action out to the west.  We went onto our top deck (yes it’s called TopDeck and no it’s not called BarUP, regardless of what my husband might tell you), and watched it all unfold.  I added some ‘interest’ to the sky-show by screaming with every fork.  Freaked the brats out a bit.   #winning

2.  Halloween chocolates from Aldi. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned my Aldi Allergy before, but I have it, and I can.not.go.in.there.  But I anti-histaminedd up, and got these. So YUM for cheapshit choccies.   Allergy may be waning.

3.  The excitement the kids had anticipating Halloween.  I hear all the ‘ween naysayers being all Grinchy and “it’s so American” about this PAGAN ritual, but to you, I say a big WHATEVs.  We decorated this place with shite plastic and creepy things and they LOVED it.  They didn’t even do the trick or treat thing, but went to Bunnings and yet, loved it still.  I rate you Halloween.

4.  The big kid going to camp.  I’ll tell you more about that another day, but yes he went, (he walked off on me with hardly a ‘bye Mum) and YES he is home again.  I need to harden my heart.

5.  Liam’s new electric guitar.  Some sweeeet tunes coming out of that bedroom these days. The current song to be mastered is “Joker and the Thief”… He can drum it, so we await the one man band.

The Shits:

1.  Crumbs on the floor.  How do you get there?  HOW? No wonder I love wearing shoes so much.

2.  BAS. You suck. You know it.  That is all.

3.  My new iPhone being full already.  Seriously? Is there a 64GB?  Bloody music.

4.  No Brody on Homeland.  Where is he?  What is happening?  How much more of that insipid daughter can we stand, and how many panic attacks from Carrie can I handle?  Gimme Brody, and gimme him now.

5.  Commonwealth Bank ads.  NO.  The Toni Collette one was bad, but now the singing dude? Really?

Have a great weekend…

What are your Hits?

What SHITTED you?

…From DJ SHADOWCAT xx