Continue reading »]]> A short story inspired by a spam comment

I asked my readers on Facebook for writing inspiration, but out of the 112 people who saw that post, not one replied. I guess they were as uninspired as I was. So I did the next best thing. I skimmed through hundreds of spam comments on my blog as I was deleting them, until one caught my eye.

When the infamous Adam twinged on Wednesday that it sustained from a dabbling of fairy detritus

Why yes, this looks like a story that needs to be told. Without further ado, I bring to you the first (and possibly last) short story inspired by spam comments.

Adam and the Fairy Detritus

Adam glanced round furtively, his face shielded by the cap he had pulled down low over his eyes. Skulking against the wall in the shadows, he watched the Orb hovering above the platform before slowly coming in to land. His tattered wings fluttered in alarm as one of the guards looked in his direction. Oh you think you’re so much better than us, thought Adam as he looked at the guard’s snappy attire; all bright colours with a sparkling glittery aura. As one of the bog dwellers Adam could only wear the regulation colours of brown, olive green and grey.

The guard started to move in Adam’s direction, but was distracted by the flashing of cameras as the glamarazzi tried to get the million dollar shot of Adorabella Fluffbottom, the popular singer who had scandalised Faerydom when a sex tape emerged of her enjoying a threesome with a pixie and a bog hopper.

By the time the guard looked back, Adam had gone.

Scurrying around the edge of the crowd, Adam caught sight of his target. Could he go through with this? Many bog dwellers had tried, but only a handful had succeeded. Adam had come further than most. His heart beating painfully in his chest, he took a deep breath. It was now or never. With the guard having spotted him, he would have to get there in record time. It was dangerous, but there was only one thing for it; Adam lit a match, fluttered his wings until he was hovering a few feet above the platform, moved the match round towards his bottom, being careful not to singe his wings, and let rip with one of his almighty farts. The sonic boom flattened the fairies hovering near the Orb as he travelled at warp speed across the platform. On his way through, he scooped a hand full of fairy detritus from a cart that had been unloaded from the Orb.

Flying through the large opening at the far end of the platform, Adam veered sharply left around the mountain he’d just exited and spiralled down to the forest floor.

“Yes,” he yelled triumphantly, raising his fist in the air. He stared at his ill-gotten gains in wonderment. Wow, he thought, my poo is brown and stinky, but this is something else.

It certainly was. Fairies, being creatures of great perfection, pooped out sparkling, rainbow-coloured balls that smelled of roses. Breathing in their heady aroma, Adam reverently placed them on a tree stump, and admired them for a moment, before popping one in his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully for a moment, before grabbing another one. Chocolate, he thought. Definitely tastes like chocolate. He closed his eyes as he began to tingle, but opened them again when he felt his body rising. The air was full of glittery colour, and when he looked down he discovered it was all coming from him. Tears streamed down his face as he realised he had done it. He was now one of the exalted ones, a faerie.

He admired his reflection in the lake as he flew over it, then flew back up the mountain and through the cavernous entrance. As a new fairy there was much to see and do, but like all kids his age, the first thing he did was pull out his Fairy-Pad to log into the popular social networking site Twinger. In 140 characters or less, he twinged about his amazing transformation.

Continue reading »]]> I hate being in front of the camera, but today I find myself doing exactly that after responding to the call from Kelley of Kelley’s Breakroom for people to film themselves saying certain words. Apparently it’s to hear all the different dialects, but really it’s just a fetish thing. Not being one to rain on anyone’s fetish parade, I found myself strangely compelled to join in on this malarky.

Here’s what she wants out of us:

The questions:
1. What is the generic term for sweetened carbonated beverages?
2. What do you call the miniature lobster that you find in lakes and streams?
3. What is that thing called that kids drink water from in the hallways at schools?
4. What do you call rubber-soled shoes that you wear to the gym? Or to run? Or to go to Target?
5. Does someone cut the grass? Cut the lawn? Mow the grass? Mow the lawn?
6. What is the general term for that big road where people, like, drive really, really fast?
7. What do you call a group of two or more people?

The words:
How do you pronounce:
8. Syrup?
9. Pecan?
10. Pajamas?
11. Mayonnaise?
12. Lawyer?
13. Crayon?
14. Marry/merry/Mary?
*15. Doesn’t Pepto Bismol taste really, really good?

*Total bonus question.

And here’s my little video…

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Continue reading »]]> Today I was dancing in the kitchen and singing along to the radio while making lunch (and remembering who wanted what in their sandwich, and on which side of the toasted sandwich maker said sandwich was cooking because you don’t want to accidentally get the Spam sandwich that your child requested). I effortlessly multi-tasked while I thought about what an awesome dancer I was. The multi-tasking really has nothing to do with this story, but I added it in just to give you an indication of how awesome I am.

There was a little pink chair in the middle of the kitchen that Miss 3 had been using to stand on when she helped me with the baking, and this made a wonderful central point for me to prance around. I shimmied, I swayed, I stuck my bottom out in the demented duck pose. I did a little two-step something or other and mixed it up with some moonwalking, tappity-tapping and pirouettes. It was beautiful, let me assure you.

Now I’ve previously alluded to my skill as a dancer, but I have to confess that I wasn’t always this magnificent. In fact, many years ago, my perception of my dancing skills far outweighed my actual talent.

Let me set the scene. It was night time, in a barn, with lots of hay bales and American cowboy-type stuff, which was a bit odd really since we were on a fruit orchard in New Zealand. We were celebrating a 50th birthday and the alcohol was flowing. Music was blaring from the speakers and I felt my dancing feet starting to twitch.

“We’re sherd der lern derncing,” I shouted when Achy Breaky Heart started playing.

Fortunately everyone understood exactly what I meant and enthusiastically agreed.

Unfortunately no one actually knew how to do line dancing.

Fortunately I had been talking up my dance skills and everyone decided I should go up the front and they would copy my moves.

Unfortunately I was drunk and, as it turns out, really crap at line dancing.

All was going well, I thought, until I executed a graceful double turn towards the end of my routine. Three lines of people tried to do the same. It didn’t end well. Think about a line of dominoes and you’ll get the picture.

Fortunately we were able to put out the fire that started when some idiot’s cigarette dropped out his mouth and landed on a hay bale. Hey kids, just a quick public safety announcement – if you’re having a shindig in a barn with lots of flammable substances, perhaps you should leave the cigarettes out of any line dancing attempts.

The rest of the evening I endured little old ladies ganging up on me and berating me for being the cause of sprained ankles, bruises and a small inferno.

“You told us you could line dance,” they shouted. One of them looked down her nose at me and made a clicking noise in her throat to indicate how low I had sunk. The effect was kind of marred by the red lipstick veering away from her lips to her cheek. Was she applying her lipstick while she danced, I wondered. 

I looked down, shuffled my feet and tried to talk my way out of an awkward situation.

What I said - ”Line dance? Oh I thought you said to do a fire dance, which I think you’ll find I did exceedingly well. Next time you need to be a bit clearer with your enunciation.”

What they heard –  ”Lern dernce, wzlf garn FIRE drfldrn.”

They stared blankly at me for a moment before wandering away, muttering something about the drunken youth of today.

Hah, they wouldn’t be so condescending if they saw how I dance when I’m sober!

This post was inspired by a writing prompt on Mama’s Losin’ It where she asked writers to describe a time when they made things awkward.

If you liked this (or even if you disliked it) feel free to leave a comment below, and/or follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or Pinterest.

Continue reading »]]> As I get older I’m finding myself getting less tolerant of intolerance. I’m saddened by the acts of terrorism by a few individuals, but I’m even more saddened by the hatred it stirs up towards ethnic groups. If one of our own commits a violent act do we judge our whole race by it?

When I was a child we moved to South Africa which was still held in the tight grip of apartheid. We children were brainwashed into believing it was right, and because we didn’t get to socialise with other children of colour, we didn’t get to see that they were just like us. But here’s the funny thing, parents entrusted the care of their children at home to African women. Maggie was the wonderful woman who looked after me. She was like a second mum, a nurturing, caring woman who I adored. My little brain was confused, and I started to question the theory that black people were inferior to us. I’m pleased to say that I came to the right conclusion, but I wasn’t brave enough to speak out. I remember a teacher who did speak out. She was gone the next day.

The point I’m trying to make is that every culture passes their prejudices on to their children, and so the cycle of hatred continues. If we want to make a difference, we need to start with our children. Yes I realise that radical extremists don’t care and they will continue their campaigns, but we have to start somewhere. Who knows what it could lead to in 20, 50, 100 or more years time.

A few weeks ago when I went to pick up my almost five-year-old son from kindergarten, one of his teachers came over to tell me how proud they were of him because he invited the new boy to sit with him at morning tea time. So what, you say. It was just the new boy, a view, incidentally, that is shared by my son. So what, indeed. He didn’t do anything special. And he’s right. He didn’t. He just extended common courtesy to another human being. The fact that the boy has special needs is what sets this situation apart, but I wonder whether by making a big deal of it and drawing attention to his differences, we’re setting them up for inequality.

I probably wouldn’t have even thought along that line if it hadn’t been for my son’s reaction to the praise he got for his actions. He honestly doesn’t understand what the fuss is about because he didn’t see a child with disabilities, he just saw a little boy who needed a friend. So to help him understand why everyone was so proud of him I’ve focussed on the fact that he was being kind to the new boy, rather than that he was kind to a child with disabilities.

My kids also have no idea about racism. I don’t know whether they just haven’t noticed that people come in different colours or that it’s just not important enough to mention. They judge them by their actions, not their colour.

When I first moved to New Zealand I was impressed with race relations. Of all the countries I have lived in, this one seems to be the most enlightened, but of course it is still a very real issue, just like it is in the rest of the world. A recent poll on the television programme The Vote, asked if New Zealand is a racist country with the results showing 76% saying yes, and 24% saying no.

It’s time to change those statistics around, so I’m going to start by doing nothing. Yep, nothing, because right now my children are free from prejudice and I’d like to keep it that way for as long as possible.

So until my kids bring up the subject, I’m going to sit back and enjoy watching them treat everyone as their equal, just as they should be.

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You know that look of horror on people’s faces when you mention your child (or you – thanks kids) has hand, foot and mouth? No? Then you haven’t experienced the joys of this particular childhood disease.

Correctly interpreting their look, you quickly reassure them that it’s not the same as the one that cows get.

“Oh zo you haven’t got ze mad cow disease zen, hur, hur, hur.”

They don’t actually say it in a German accent, it’s just that in my mind anyone who does a ‘hur, hur, hur’ laugh automatically gets pictured as a fat, jovial German wearing lederhosen. And the funny thing is that they all do it; there’s something about inferring that someone is a mad cow that automatically brings on that particular laugh.

So it’s been two weeks of torture in our household. My son was the first to get it, followed by my daughter when he was getting over it, and then of course I got a mild dose.

My son had spots in his mouth and on his eyelids. He was well again after a few days. My daughter had it much worse with the spots in her mouth, hands, feet and a few on her face. Hers lasted 9 days. And me? Well I got a few blisters in my mouth, and that was it. Yup nowhere else. Move along now. Nothing to see here.

But, hypothetically speaking, given that the virus can be spread through faeces there is a chance that the blisters might also be found  in your crack, and, again this is all hypothetical, if you got haemorrhoids from a whole day of pushing to get your son’s giant head out your vagina, then those blisters might just be @##%%#@%@^%@#@#$%^$@^%&^%&%^%#@$$.

Mad cows are probably only mildly annoyed compared to you.

Just saying.

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Continue reading »]]> Last year I wrote about my son learning to ride his motorbike by himself. Since then he’s had a bike upgrade. It went well to start with, but then he and his bike had a disagreement and we struggled to get him to ride it. If we took him down to ride on the grass by the river he was happy enough just pootling around, but put him on a dirt track and all his confidence disappeared.

Now his motorbike and safety gear wasn’t cheap, so we couldn’t really afford to have it sitting around gathering dust on the off chance he might want to give it a go again. We were faced with the option of selling it and either getting him a trail bike instead, or giving up on motorcycles all together.

We had agonised over whether we’d put too much pressure on him; neither of us wanting to be one of those over-bearing parents that expected too much of their child. Was it our exasperation when, for seemingly no reason, he would no longer be willing to go round a corner or over a jump that he’d had no problems with before that was causing the issues? Had we upgraded his Peewee to the more grunty KTM before he was ready? Had we used his motorbike as a bargaining tool for good behaviour too often? We’re we expecting too much of a four year old? Maybe he just didn’t enjoy riding any more. We were feeling all kinds of guilt thinking that maybe we had ruined something that he used to love.

As a last ditch attempt, we decided to take him to the motocross track at Easter for the Capital Champs where he could ride if he wanted to, or just watch, but it had to be his decision.

The day before the racing we took him to the local BMX track to ride his BMX bike. It was his first time there and he loved it. He didn’t have any of the cornering issues on his BMX that he did on his motorbike so we explained that he could use the same principles of cornering when riding his motorbike. It was like a light bulb moment for him and suddenly there was a little spark in his eyes. Later that day he told us he wanted to ride his motorbike.

At 2 o’clock the following morning he came into our bedroom and asked if it was time to go to the track. I knew then it was going to be okay.

With Jimmy having to work on the first day, I had to take him by myself – we figured this could be beneficial because I tend to be a bit more easy going where his riding is concerned. Whether it was because it was just me, or because his friends were riding, or that the track was so much better than the one he’d been used to riding, or because somewhere in his head he’d got it all sorted out, I’ll never know, but he had a fantastic day. He couldn’t wait for each of his races to come up and he rode consistently throughout the day.

He’s got his race face on.

His best race start where he got the holeshot into the first corner

By his third race he was getting airborne on every jump.

The following day he was keen to race again, despite the fact that it was raining. The track soon became very slippery and it was harder to ride as the mud stuck to his wheels. He fell off many times, but every time he got back on and kept going.

At the end of the weekend he was awarded a medal for coming seventh, but to us it felt like he had come first.

He’s pretty darned pleased with his medal.

He’s so much more confident with his riding ability now – so confident, in fact, that he asked if he could do the other track. Yup, not content with the minis track, he wants to have a go at the adults one!

Thank goodness we’ve got another seven years before he’s old enough to ride this track!

I don’t think I could be any prouder of my son – my little champion.

Continue reading »]]> How to turn an entertainment unit into a doll house, school and superhero hideout

My kids have become bored with the kitchen I fashioned for them from an old entertainment unit so I figured it was time to put it to a new use. Before we started I gave myself a pat on the back for doing such a half-arsed basic job when I turned it into a kitchen, because it meant it was easy to transform it into a totally different play space, whilst still being able to turn it back if required.

I’ve had both kids home all week as they’re unwell so this has been the perfect project to entertain all of us whilst stuck in the house.

I now present to you the doll house with man-cave basement, school, and secret superhero hideout.

Master 4 and Miss 3 can happily play side-by-side in the same play space. Sometimes they play with the dolls, other times it’s with the superheroes and villains, and many a time they are each playing their own game in companionable proximity. Often something the other is doing will peak their interest and their games will meld together; a delightful mix of family life, heroic rescues, and dastardly deeds that always result in jail time for the evil villain.

My daughter is sick. Therefore her hair is brought to you by “Come near me with that brush and I’ll cut you”, and her clothing is by “Go look in the mirror before you even think about commenting on my clothing, you judgemental cow”. Thank goodness she has this play space to distract her from how much she dislikes Mummy today.

Here’s a closer look at what’s happening in this World. . .

Are you wondering why there’s a big stick hanging from the balcony? Remember it’s a man-cave. Usually Daddy’s drink when they’re hiding in their man-cave. Ho-ho-ho it’s so much fun to play practical jokes on your brother who teaches at the school, no? Use the stick to knock on the door below and then . . . (please don’t say golden shower, please don’t say golden shower)

Moving on. Here is the side view.

Triple bunk beds – yeehaa!

And now a closer look at the girly side.

Typical! The Daddy is playing silly buggers from his man-cave balcony whilst the Mummy is busy bathing the baby.

And here’s a closer look at the superhero lair. Please note the effort I have gone to to make it look all superheroey.

That’s the Green Goblin escaping from jail on the bottom right whilst Spiderman and The Green Lantern show off their dance moves or something in their funky futuristic-looking secret hideout.

What do you mean it looks like something only someone in the 1950s would think of as futuristic?

Look at those groovy futuristic bubble windows, and that awesome futuristic table made from a CD and tinfoil-covered toilet roll tube. Not to forget the awesome colourful tubes that were once part of a marble run. And then there’s the old formula tin covered in tinfoil next to the toilet that the soldier is taking a piss in. That’s dead-sexy futurism right there!

∞

If you came to my website in the hopes of getting ideas to create an amazing kitchen or dolls house from an old entertainment unit, like all those cool ones you see on Pinterest, then sorry.
My advice to you  is that you don’t need to put a whole lot of effort and money into creating the most amazeballs kitchen or dolls house, because your kids will love it whatever you do. And if, like my efforts, the transformation is fairly basic, it makes it easy to transform it into something else when the time comes. Hey I could even transform this old entertainment unit into an entertainment unit again!

If you liked this (or even if you disliked it) feel free to leave a comment below, and/or follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or Pinterest.

Continue reading »]]> I’ve-a weta the bed

You know that moment when you’re sound asleep in bed and the collar on your husband’s t-shirt (that you ‘borrowed’ to use as a pyjama top) feels funny?

Naturally my first thought was that I was wearing the t-shirt round the wrong way since I do this on average once a week and only ever notice after I’ve been wandering around in public for some time. I batted at what I thought was the tag to try and make it more comfortable, then rolled over and lay my hand down on the mattress next to my pillow.

There was something there.

It was angry.

It bit me.

So I did what any reasonable person would do; I sat bolt upright and freaked the hell out.

Between my shrieks and slaps to his face while my arms flailed, Jimmy tried to calm me down by telling me I’d had a bad dream.

Pah!

He changed his tune when a whole lot of angry noises started coming from the region of my pillow. The way he scrabbled out of bed and leapt across the room to turn the light on would have been hilarious in normal circumstances, but not when you discover you’ve got a sodding big weta in your bed.

This is not the weta that was in our bed. Ours was bigger. (Note: possible exaggeration)

Source T.E.R.R.A.I.N. Click to see more weta pictures by Phil Bendle. 

I’m sure Jimmy was making girly shrieks as he ran out the room, leaving me to have a stare-off with a giant bug who clearly felt that ownership of our bed had been transferred to him. Fortunately, the return of Jimmy, and the placement of a colander on top of the malevolent stink-eye-giving guest in our bed just as he appeared to be about to challenge me, restored order to our World. Order you say? Why yes, we’re so used to having noisy, angry little people around us, that this angry little mofo calling us names from his little colander prison seemed perfectly normal. I just wish a colander and item of junk mail were as effective at removing my children when they have hissy fits.

With the crisis averted, I hopped back into bed and fell sound asleep.

Feel free to leave a comment below, and/or follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or Pinterest.

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Blogtabulous celebrates writers who aren’t afraid to make fun of themselves to make you laugh. Actually, they are chosen not for their writing talent, but for any bizarre photos I can dredge up of them to make my fabulous magazine covers. Really the rest of it is irrelevant. It’s just pure luck that they happen to be funny too.

Today I’m interviewing Kim Bongiorno from Let Me Start by Saying. Now she’s so busy with all her writing gigs that the only slot available for our chat was during her morning ablutions. The acoustics in the powder room were so good that we didn’t need side-by-side stalls to conduct our interview, which is just as well as one of us (and I’m not saying which) might have a bit of a problem with anal odour. 

As we dropped the kids off at the pool, I asked Kim to tell me about herself.

I’m a giant, white, slightly furry lady who used to have fabulous fun bags, living in the suburbs with my two kids and very patient husband. My blog began as a way to track my journey from SAHM to professional writer while Life kept throwing ridiculous amounts of bullshit my way. It really began to blow up once I shared my year-long frustration with a broken butt, and every procedure to fix it. It has been the kind of ride that’ll give you borborygmi, which is the very best kind of ride.

Why do crayons taste like purple?

Another of Kim’s popular posts, turned into a meme and doing the rounds on the internet. Make sure you credit Kim if you share it.

You’ve published a book. Tell us about it.

Part of My World: Short Stories is a collection of 21 fiction pieces I created from online writing prompts. It is divided into four sections, and covers all types of stories, from reunited lovers to teenaged angst, Sci-Fi drama to surprising humour. This is a quick-to-read eBook created to remind people that I’m a fiction writer at heart. I have a Young Adult Fiction novel I will try to get published this year, and hope that once people read my eBook, they will get excited to see what else I have up my sleeve.

It is available for only $0.99USD on Amazon or Smashwords. If you don’t have an eReader, you can easily download the free Kindle App for smartphones or iPad.

♦

Where can people find you?