please ignore the dying plant and artillery. Or not.

Today was a day with no televison. Not once was the TV turned on.

Not for the morning show to watch the news.

Not for the banality that is morning TV.

Not for Dr Phil.

Not for Oprah.

Not even for motherfucking Martha Stewart.

Now before you go all ‘WOW she has some serious restraint cause Martha was decorating cakes AND laundries today’ and I die a little inside because they are my two ob-freaking-sessions right now, it is not because I have gone on some weirded out hippy TV rots your brain tangent and will start duct taping scalding hot stones to my upper torso.

It was because I couldn’t find the remote.

Some fucker hid the bastard and because someone thinks it is absolutely necessary to hook shit up through other shit and have a fucking communicating remote that is all ‘did that fix the problem?’ and I am all NO IT DID NOT FIX THE PROBLEM BECAUSE I CANNOT FIND THE DAMN REMOTE TO ANSWER YOU, and if I don’t have the motherfucking communicating remote I have no freaking CLUE how to turn the TV on through the PVR/DRV/DVR/PVA/MIA/MRI thingamahboobie.

So today I sat in silence. And learned far more than I ever needed to about the Power Rangers.

photo credit: Moo.  Pretty good considering she was doubled over with the laughter.

Twenty years ago today, my boyfriend kissed me goodbye, got in his car and drove to a new life.  Thousands of miles away.

Twenty years ago today, while standing in the driveway waving goodbye to a boyfriend who was a good filler between boyfriend may he burn in hell and OMG we are totally going to get married and have babies and stuff boyfriend, MPS was waiting around the corner.

Yes.  I was THAT girl.

So today, twenty years and worlds away from the day I stood on the stoop of my boyfriends house waving him goodbye and wishing him well and then minutes later greeting my new boyfriend in that same driveway, we celebrate 20 years sharing the same bed.

But not the same toothbrush.  Cause EWWWWW

{feedbiatches youtube clip embedded}

P.S. to understand the relevance of the title and picture you need to read this: How I met my husband.

P.P.S.  I cried BUCKETS over that unfortunate timing.  Sitting in my room with ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ on repeat. Keeping them both hanging while Bonnie and I sang it out.

P.P.P.S Yeah, two posts on one day.  Eventful fucking day.

I sit in front of my computer.

A fresh cooling breeze hitting my shoulders from the open window beside me.

The TV is off, the only sounds are Strong Bad on loop coming from Boo’s bedroom while he sits in the family room with MPS making a ‘movie’.

I hear a helicopter in the distance, the only thing reminiscent of that day a year ago today.

The day when it rained fire and ash.

The day when we sat glued to the radio listening to the warnings,

and the body count.

Today the bush is green and lush, regrowth and rebuilding, life goes on.

S lives down the street from me now, her new house almost ready, due to move in on my birthday, her beautiful granddaughters 1st birthday.

It was my workmates uncle that was found dead in his car out the front of S’s house.  Not even the chimney was left standing.  He didn’t stand a chance.  Metres away another friends husband and son huddled in a cement water tank.

I just cannot comprehend it.  Don’t want to comprehend the horror.

As I sit here and look out my window I find it hard to believe that this time last year it was 48C and our state was ablaze.

Life goes on, but we will never forget.

‘We will have takeaway for dinner’ were the first words out his mouth when I picked him up.

‘Nope’ was my reply.

For the next hour he vacillated between screaming and sobbing and heartwrenching looks and totally broke my resolve, culminating with me -

• laying next to him on his bed while he cried into my hair with huge heaving sobs;

• wondering what happened at school to get him in such a state;

• making excuses for him – new teacher, new area of the school, new aide, the fact that as of this week he is now taller than me and it is freaking him (and me!) the fuck out;

• and pinky promising with a thumb stamp that we would have hot chips for dinner.

Two. Fucking. Seconds. Later… he was all smiles and happy and eating his afternoon tea.

Dude is a playa.

Mummy is a sucka.

Game on Boo, game on.

Click image to largerize…

nuff said. Bow to me.

P.S. there was another definition but I thought I would give the people at Urban Dictionary the heads up that I am not blonde nor blue eyed.  So they can fix it.  I am not only humble but helpful as well.

P.P.S. I totally stole this idea from one of those memey things from Facebook.  Shhhhh, don’t tell anyone K?

P.P.P.S.  Here, I fixed it.

you are totally welcome Urban Dictionary

P.P.P.S.  I am slightly disappointed that there is no mention of me being awesome in there.  Stupid head Urban Dictionary.

P.P.P.P.S Apparently everyone in THE WORLD has looked up their name on Urban Dictionary already.  Years ago even.  Whatever, obviously it has not been done PROPERLY until it was done by me. *insert hair flick here*

Today Boo was up and raring to go.  Dressed and packed for his first day of the school year an HOUR AND A HALF ahead of time.

Too did the usual ‘whatevz’ but left the house sporting her new awesome messenger bag and the cutest pencil case ON EARTH.

Moo lounged around in bed, as you do when you are now officially a fucking bum finished school.

Dropped MPS at the bus stop, Too at the train station, Boo at his new classroom and then Da Boyfriend came and picked up Moo and then I was free.  Free.  FREE!

First day AH-LONE since October last year.

I contemplated streaking around the house nekkid, but settled on baking lemon cookies listening to Metallica sans pants.

Every year I take the first week back at school off work {hmmm, does that even make sense?  I take a week off work on their first week back… whatevz I AIN’T AT WORK BIATCHES AND I AM HOME AH-LONE!} under the guise that I will be available for the new teacher and aide lest Boo lose his shit.  But we all know it is cause I want to be alone.

Sans pants.

A few hours into my solitude I got an email from MPS telling me that he had busted the fly in his pants and was dreading the bus ride home giving The Great Unwashed a free peepshow.  As I am a kind and supportive wife I replied with ’sucks to be you Hobo’.

Then I spent the next half hour composing a text message to fuck with Too aka Grammar Nazi’s head.

‘Msg me @{insert next town with all vowels removed} if train L8.  KTHXBAI’

And then I giggled my sans pantsified arse off at the mental image of her screaming at her phone after receiving it.

Alas, apparently I lose a few IQ points while basking at the altar of sans pantsery and sent the message to her old mobile number. But no matter, when I told her what I sent I got to actually SEE the head explosion minutes after she informed me that her English class is full of poor unfortunates of normal intelligence and therefore the class is a total and utter waste of time.  I believe her words were ‘when the teacher enquired how I felt about the class I said ’sufficiently patronized actually”

Sucks to be you English teacher.  I had eight weeks of her home all day rolling her eyes at my inadequacies and I didn’t get paid for it.

So tomorrow on day two of the school year I will slow the car down in the general vicinity of the school/train station/bus stop, open the door and shout ‘tuck and roll!’ {cause I am kind and caring} and then rock the sans pants the second I walk in the door.

Mummy gunna shake her pantsless booty to some tunes while emptying the house of the debris of two months of accumulated shit treasures.

And I can’t wait.

So what do YOU do when you are all alone in the house?  I have FOUR DAYS left and totally open to suggestions.  Particularly anything that would fuck with my family’s minds.

Especially that Hobo.  Cause dude flashed his junk on public transport.

I took a break.

The internet still worked. People still Twittered and Facebooked and laughed and cried and sent messages of hope and support, took pictures of their children and sent naked photos to one another and fuckers still trolled.

I took a break. And it was lovely.

On Wednesday last week I was lying in bed thinking of you. And you. And you. And of course, YOU.

And then Thursday morning I woke and thought I need a break.

And so I did.

While I was gone I…

• slept in
• stayed up late
• watched movies with my kids
• watched movies with MPS
• reorganised my laundry and threw out a heap of crap
• contemplated my navel
• cleaned out my navel
• contemplated making a teddy bear out of navel lint

thanks to my biatches at Craftastrophe for that little mind explosion

• contemplated it further and decided that shit is fucked up
• got me some religion
• multiple times
• bought a pool
• swam in said pool
• drank
• ate
• ate awesomely delicious meals cooked as a family and helped Moo take notes for a recipe book of Mummy
• ate easy party food for no reason
• plucked my eyebrows
• napped
• went shopping
• sat staring at the wall
• visited the city
• visited a university campus in the city
• cried tears of relief when Moo decided to defer a year from going to said university campus in the city
• walked into various schools, opened my purse and said ‘have at it’ and bent over as required by law and school fees
• went on a hot date with MPS to pick up Too’s school books – 8 books equalling the down payment on a small apartment. Ouch.
• got a sexy new hair cut and now I look like I should be in the PussyCat Dolls
• covered eleventy hundred school books in various Japanese anime and made a Pokemon pencil case
• Mark As All Read

I didn’t get a hell of a lot done, and my poor MacBook sat forlornly in the corner wondering what she had done wrong, but it was nice to just log off for a time.  Get back to the real reason why I am a citizen of the internetz.  For fun and connecting with all of you wonderful people all over the world, not feel guilty because I hadn’t visited so and so’s blog or commented here or added  this Twibbon or cut and pasted this particular support message cause you know that 96% of others wont so it is totally up to me or all the kids in the slums of Venezuela will never know the bliss of owning a yellow tshirt.

It was nice to switch off for a little while.

But I totally missed you.  Especially YOU.

I am not dead.

I am not languishing in the senior citizens lounge of the local hospital like last year, nor am I in the ‘mental hospital getting the help you obviously need’ {fuck you troll, sideways with my trusty moulding razorblade encrusted pineapple}.

I am not on some awesome luxury holiday with my every need being met seconds before I am actually aware of the need.

I am just not ready yet.

And as soon as I hit publish on this {posted just so all my wonderful lovelies can calm the hell down and know that I am OK} I KNOW something huge will happen and I will jump on here and twitter and facebook and feel like an idiot for posting a ‘I am here but not here’ post.

But till then, I am OK.

And I am now going to go play in the pool with my Boo.

I was out shopping with Boo. As I am allowed to do because I am A FUCKING ADULT AND CAN DECIDE TO DO CRAZY THINGS LIKE TAKE MY KID SHOPPING FOR SCHOOL SHOES when MOTY called me on my mobile.

‘Where are you? Why aren’t you at home? What are you doing?’

‘Calm down Mum, I am in Target with Boo.’

‘WHY are you in Target? Why aren’t you at home? What are you buying?’

‘Well, right now Boo and I are looking at DVD’s’

‘But you have enough DVD’s’

*sigh* ‘Yes. We probably do. But Boo likes to look at them anyway.’

‘Has your phone been disconnected? I called this morning and it went straight to message bank’

‘Um. I don’t think so Mum. If it went to message bank then you got through’

‘But WHY didn’t you answer?’

‘Maybe I wasn’t there? I dunno, maybe I was outside?’

‘WHY would you be outside? Where were you?’

‘I really don’t know. Anyway, why did you call?’

LOOOOOOOOOOOONG description of everything she did yesterday and how wonderful people are but not this person and did you hear about this and your uncle and aunt turned up yesterday (which admittedly is pretty newsworthy seeing it is a 5 hour round trip) and I have volunteered to help with the Australia Day BBQ it is such and imposition but I need to do my part because it is a community after all even though THIS person wouldn’t lift a damn finger despite the fact I am looking after her dogs and so-and-so’s dogs and then have to feed the neighbours cat and I do it all because I am so much better than everyone else don’t you know?

‘Mum, I really need to go. Boo has taken off with an armful of DVD’s…’

‘Don’t you think you have enough DVD’s?’

‘Yeah. Probably’

When I got home I checked the message bank. There was a message from her. At 9.15am. Around the time when Too was on the phone.

Le sigh.

Is it wrong that, moments after finding out that Moo has been offered a place at her 1st choice university, I start mentally turning her room into a Mothers Retreat?

Already gotz me the combination lock and perused google for WHITE lounges and big fluffy pillows.

What?

You can’t tell me that you wouldn’t do the same.

{in reality I am FREAKING THE FUCK OUT. My baby, so far away…}

EDITED TO ADD:
Her best friend got into the same course BOOYAH!
We are all going down next week to enrol and check out the campus SWEET! ROAD TRIP!
We will be looking at accomodation UM, OK… *sob*
Her boyfriend goes to that uni already and they are talking about moving in together *rocks in corner sucking thumb and weeping in horror*