….I saw this tweet and it made me have some nostalgia feels.  Here they are….

***

Sunday morning.  Mouth feeling like the bottom of a cockatiel’s cage.  Skin too tight.  Burning in my abdomen.  A sign of a good night.  Or a bad one.  I don’t remember which.  But I woke up in my own bed and that is a good enough start.

What to do with the burning and the spinning head and the aching when I try to lift my arms?  I lie still, trying to ignore the pain that the weight of the doona inflicts on my hypersensitive skin.  I know the cure.  It’s not that far away, but far enough that in this moment, in this body, it feels further away than Everest’s elusive summit.

Unlike Hillary, I won’t be going ‘because it was (sic) there’, but because I must.  Reparation, Repentance and Rejuvenation lie within its lurid walls.  It’s cushioned booths will beckon me with their stop-sign red cushions, but I will choose the position of shame.  The seat of the Sunday morning uncoupled.  The stool at the bar.

Strangely, the bar seating, although not revered by those in the throes of love, or Saturday-Night-Becoming-Sunday lust, are the best seats in the house.  They are where you receive not only eerily prompt and cheeky service, you don’t need to entertain yourself with the drivel of the Sunday papers, you can be entertained by the staff, watch their frenetic activity and become almost one of them, for a time.

Somehow, by some superhuman feat of endurance I’ve managed to get weekend presentable, find a park (albeit two kilometres away, it would have been easier and perhaps almost closer to have walked) and drag my haglike countenance to a stool.

Jimbo is behind the bar.  Good.  He knows what I am going through and he has the elixir at his disposal.  I just nod my head.  Not too much or my brain will hit my frontal bone and bounce back to my occiput, pinging and ponging until I am completely still again.  Jimbo is a good egg.  He starts proceedings.

One: Bloody Mary with extra tabasco and don’t even think about adding a celery stick.

Two: One double-shot cappuccino with as much froth as you can muster.  For Jimbo that is a lot.  He is a master.  I know, people say they are supposed to be milky, but I don’t drink capps for the milk, I drink them because they are a coffee and a dessert in one.  And Jimbo doesn’t fuck around with stupid coffee pictures, the art is in the beans.  And these beans will blow my hangover further than any beanstalk.

Three: Eggs Benny.  It goes without saying that the eggs will be runny. They will not be on toast.  They will not have salmon, bacon, rocket, spinach, or any other bullshit the chef dreamed up when he wanted to get rid of shit left over from last night.  They will be on muffins and the muffins will be buttered and soft.  There will be ham off the bone.  The sauce will be bright yellow, not some insipid, poor, pale, vinegar-tasting imposter.

After, and only after I have eaten more than 63% of my meal will Jimbo nod in my direction, eyebrows like Macca’s arches, and perhaps, if the coffee is performing it’s healing, I will push my sunglasses up on top of my head, and say, “Think so. Think I’m still alive.  I’m never drinking again.”  And Jimbo will laugh, like he does, and bring me another capp, this time saying, “Here’s one on the house, for resuss purposes.  As long as you never drink again.”

I will nod, and we will smile at each other, full of knowing that I’ll be back next Sunday to do it all again.

***

I can’t believe you’re gone Dr Greasy Joe’s.  Such a sad thing for St.Kilda.

Do you have a place you lament the passing of?  Is there some shit Coffee Club there?

…From The Ashers xx

I blame the telly.

Specifically (un)reality television.

House Rules to be specific.  They made it look possible, and weirdly, even kind of fun, to renovate things.  And by renovate I mean tear shit down.

So on the weekend, we thought it might be fun, or something, to do shit around here.

Trees were cut down, fences were painted, new greenery was planted.  Sounds easy right?

Cutting down trees?  It’s not like the movies with a chop-chop here and cry of “Tim-berrr” there, and it falls.  Oh no.  There are ROOTS and STUMPS left behind.  And that screws up what you want to do next (which is, interestingly, to plant more trees).

Painting fences?  Do you know how hard it is to paint a rendered fence a different colour?  Bloody hard, that’s how.  You have to get your paint brush into all the tiny divots in the wall.  And don’t EVEN talk to me about paling fences that have gaps in the palings and you have to get a teeny tiny brush in between.  When it’s dark.  And raining.  And you are painting it dark grey, sorry, Monument.

Sweet baby cheeses, I can hardly move today, but wait, there’s MORE.  I had to go to the garden place today- and, I shit you not, it’s bigger than the MCG- to find more plants.

I do not know what plants look like.  I mean, I know what the word ‘plant’ means, but I have a pretty loose definition.  To me, it means: green, growing-thingy in the ground.  Some people call the things I know as plants, weeds.  I say: expand your definition (and thus decrease your work-load).

Anyway, I had instructions typed in my phone, of quantities and brands and measurements.  (Who knew plants came in measurements?).  The plants over at the plantatorium were not grouped in any type of sensible order.  There was not a category of: Plants that Alison might want so let’s put them close to the carpark so she doesn’t hurt her elbow any more than she already has when she has to carry them.  No.  The plants that I wanted were spread out over three suburbs.

Eventually, and with three trips back to the main office for further compass directions, I had my purchases.  They did not fit into my car. They had to lie down. They did not like lying down.  Neither did they did not like having their bamboo stakes removed.  And the back of my virtually new car did not like all the tan-bark-soil than spread itself around with wanton abandon.

When they got home, I found that the ground that was to house these plants looks like lovely soft sand, but it is not.  Oh no. It is full of the roots and remains of all of the plants that have come and gone before.  Plus some bits of concrete and rogue building materials.  And did I mention MASSIVE BLOODY ROOTS?

I toiled and toiled and actual sweat came out of me and I almost got a blister and now it is done.

Until tomorrow when I have to paint in-between the fence palings.  With a tiny brush.

Remind me not to go on telly.  My language about  the ROOTS is appalling.  I may have done that thing, when you say the word twice.  Like ATM Machine.  But about the ROOTS

So yeah, I’ll be the one in the tent.

Have you ever been inspired by (un)reality telly?

What have they made you do?

…From The Ashers xx

This kid:

How did he get so big?

Wasn’t it only seven months ago last Tuesday when I chucked that pregnancy test on the ground and went running along the beach trying to get some air back into my lungs once I realised my life was about to be changed forever, and I could not control how?

Wasn’t it only five months ago tomorrow that I held him in my arms, whilst chatting to the Ob/Gyn at my six week check up, looking down into those big chocolate eyes and saying, “I really like him. I mean, I love him, but I really like him.”  With a feeling of surprise of how much I genuinely liked the little guy’s company?

Wasn’t it only a few weeks ago that we were going through the kindy gate and he stopped, and stared at a sign, and chimed in his sweet little four year old voice “What does ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted’ mean Mummy?”  And I nearly fell over, not realising he could read already?

Wasn’t it only a couple of days ago that he told me he wanted to do some busking to raise money for the World Eyes (World Vision) and then decided also to have a big garage sale of “all the toys that I’ve already had a lot of fun with, and even though I still like them, I’m kinda more of a Minecraft and Author kind of guy, so yeah, maybe I could sell them to other kids so that the World Eye kids could get some, you know, food and water and stuff.”?

I think it was.

And now, as you read this he will be taking the bag that he has packed himself, on a two night camp up to the hills to have adventures and make memories that are nothing to do with me.  He will eat, sleep, drink and play whatever he chooses without me overseeing every little detail.  He will have conversations with friends, laugh with teachers and test his limits in new and exciting ways and I won’t have anything to do with how he goes about it.  He will do it however he likes.

He will be his own man.

Already he knows all about how babies are made (or as he would say, “How to conceive a child”) but he hasn’t quite grown into his teeth.

So how did he get so big?

…From The Ashers xx

The Colobus Monkey looks perturbed about his tail too….

Ever had one of those days when you know you’ve just got it all going on?  I have.  I walk around the place mentally high-fiving myself because: I got it going on.

Like today, when I’d done all the menial tasks of changing sheets, loads of washing by two, dinner in the slow cooker (DO YOU HAVE A CROCKPOT YET?  IF NOT STOP READING THIS AND GET YOUR ARSE TO BIGW OR SOME OTHER CHEAP SHOP AND GET ONE RIGHT NOW.  GO ON, I’LL WAIT RIGHT HERE), notes and forms for the week filled out, including the stuff for school camp meticulously named* and neatly packed shoved in the bag… etc.   All that, but wait, there’s more, I also went to assembly EVEN THOUGH MY KID WASN’T GETTING AN AWARD!

I love days like this.  I can walk around being quietly smug, because: I got it going on.  In fact, I had it going on so hard that I had time to have a massage and still get to the school pick-up twenty five minutes early.  Just enough time to have a scroll through Facey/Twit/Insta before I waltzed down to pick up the Evil Geniuses cherubs.

Days like this I got it going on so well that I was able to swan about the shops for a bit, waving hello to all the people I know in my town.  In fact, I was probably humming People In Your Neighbourhood from Seasame Street as I went, a glide in my gait, with a light breeze tickling my arms that perfectly balanced the cosy Autumn sunshine that was giving me a little glow.

If I had to imagine what I looked like right then, I’d guess people would think I looked like Mother of the Year, who could possibly have been a Target model if I hadn’t been in such a good paddock since the nuptials.  Either that or they would’ve thought the carpenter had been home at lunchtime to, ahem, screw some wood in place.

As I said, I got it going on, so I thought I’d pop in and have a quick wee, check my hair and lippy before going down to the classrooms.  I was early remember.

And there I saw it.

Well, saw them, because there were two things, weren’t  there?

I racked my brain, trying to remember when I last went to the dunny, this is important, because: I had a whole lotta toilette tickets coming out of my knickers like some kind of Colobus Monkey tail.  You know what I’m talking about right?  We’ve all seen it.  The lady in a rush who pulls up her Reg Grundies too fast and leaves the evidence out on show.  That.  All I could  think was, “I’m glad I didn’t do a poo, I’m glad I didn’t do a poo.”

And then the other thing.

The biggest, reddest, plumpest, pus-filled pimple that ever a menopausal women did have.  It was practically flashing and pulsating like the disco lights at Blazers in 1992.  No wonder people were looking.  It was like a flare going off.  No wonder they thought I modelled for Target.  There was a bullseye logo.

So yeah, in case you were wondering: I got it going on.

*Scribbled with a permanent marker, that has bled through the fabric so everyone can see the kid is in fact called MAIL.

How was your post Mother’s Day comedown?  Did you have a Prosecco Pimple too?

…From The Ashers xxx

Once upon a time, a feisty little lady with eyes of blue stained glass who loved trees and mountains, strong filtered coffee and wild, sweet blackberry jam and crisp air, gave me some tea.  The tea was from the mountains she loved the most.  She gave me the tea at a time in her life when her days were drawing shorter and her vision was becoming tunnelled and she was getting fuzzy around the edges.

She gave me the tea because I loved her son, and I guess she thought I always would.  But one day we didn’t love each other so much any more, so I left and I took the tea with me.  I guess it was mine to take.

I moved to Sydney then back to Melbourne, then all over the country, crissing and crossing, and finally up to Queensland, and the tea came with me.  It is a tea that likes travel.

I only drink it once a year, and so I can’t tell if the flavour has changed much.  I don’t know if tea goes stale, I assume it does.  It doesn’t taste stale, but seems different all the same.  Or perhaps it’s me whose tastes have changed as the years flip over and then over again.  The tea seems more mellow, more relaxing, less sharp.  Or perhaps that’s just me.  They say that you can read tea leaves to find out your destiny.  Perhaps your tea can read you too.

It takes a while for the cool of the seasons to set in, up here, from where I perch.  There is no real Autumn, for no trees lose their leaves, but around Easter-time there is a dampness in the mornings and a nibble of cold in the evenings, and you can get the sense that further South it has started to change.  The nights draw in a little, and so I get out the Himalayan tea.

My Himalayan tea has fancy aspirations so I brew it in my Nanna stuff.  A Royal Doulton teapot, and a fine cup and saucer beside it.  Sometimes I use the matching set, and other times I use one of the cups salvaged from one of my Nanna’s homes.  Jean or Marjorie, the ladies I knew well, or perhaps Kathleen, a fine old girl whose mind had gone away before I came on the scene. I also have one from Lesley, that little lead-footed dynamo who is still going strong, and sharp as a tack with her emails and iPads.

The noise of the tea cup on the saucer takes me back to slow days of scones and tea cosies and crocheting and cards.

The whispery tinkle of the tea pouring takes me to a place of warmth and comfort and safety and love.

Today I can feel a tickle or two of cool in the breeze as it ruffles the hairs on my arms and tries to tease them to attention.  Looking down from my writing eyrie I can see a slight change to the blue of the sea, it is moving to grey tones, just like those startling blue eyes did when they started to fade.

Today I will choose a teapot, new.  A gift from a stranger, with a heart as colourful as it’s knitted jacket, and I will sip my tea, grown from a mountain soil that I will never visit.  I will imagine the prayer flags that were laid down with me in mind, and I will wish things to be different.  I will wish that all of these beautiful tea-loving women still walked these living paths.  That they were still here, making fresh brews and fresher stories, rather than these tales in my mind.

…From The Ashers xx

I’m off to the Melbourne Comedy Festival Roadshow at The J tonight, so chances are I will be testing out the patency of my Menopausal pelvic floor, and attempting not to urinate with mirth on those around me, at the time that I would usually be tucked up with a cuppa and reflecting on my hits of the week for you.

So here they are, contrived a little early, during a week that was shortened due to: VET VISITS.  Did I mention I drove to BRISBANE (yes, I left The Shire) to go to the PET OPHTHALMOLOGIST?

HITS PEOPLE:

1.  Woofa Butterball Popsicle Asher the cat, may be blind in one eye (bummer for her) but doesn’t need an operation with the teeny tiny instruments flown in from El Salvador.  That puts me one up on good old George here.

2.  The following is a snarky tweet (I know, sarcastic, who me?) I sent to the Twittersphere during the #MKR final, that was then favourited by TW Week.  It made me laugh.  Apparently they didn’t read my previous tweets.

It’s my second favourite claim to Twitter fame.  The best was when I tweeted Rodney Eade when he was on AFL 360, that Bob Murphy needed a haircut, and Robbo read it out and they all laughed.  It should be noted that Bob has since had a lovely neat haircut, so, who knows how one small thing we think or say today can affect the lives of, well, one person, tomorrow?

3.  And whilst I’m on the Twitter thing, there is a man I follow over there who I follow so I can keep an eye on what he is up to, not because I like what he says.  He is extremely vehement on all manner of things, and of course, he is entitled to his opinion on how the world should be, that is his right.  He can also run his Twitter and FB however he likes.  What I don’t like is some of the horrible things he says about people I know and love.   People just doing their best in their daily lives, trying to help those who come and see them for assistance.  It gets me cross.  To soothe myself,  I like to imagine that he is coming from a place of concern for others and maybe even working for what he truly believes is the greater good.  Or maybe he is just a weasel.  IDK.

Anyway, this week he got blocked by Ricky Gervais (after Ricky warning Twitter he was going on a “blocking spree’ and blocking any negative comments).  Call me a nasty pastie, but I was a bit gleeful when I read the fallout from a blocked bully:

Oh yeah, tell the man how to run his own FB

Look at him seething (Ricky can’t even see these tweets, mind you)

4.  And on balance, to restore the nice glow of the interconnectedness of all of us, there was this lovely post on Instagram by gorgeous Smilechickie.  I love Mark Twain. ( And he doesn’t even mention Twitter… Go figure.)

5.  I’ve kept the best and possibly, maybe, dare I even say it out loud, most exciting thing until last.  Feast your eyes on this:

It’s only early days, and maybe Steve and Emma are just toying with me and my “tortured artist” sensibilities, but hey, it’s fun to think that this may one day be a thing.  And perhaps one day soon you’ll all be carrying a little part of From The Ashers around with you on your idevices or whatever it is you youngies read things on these days…  Who knows?

Aside:  I just wanted you all to know that I am of sound mind, and I am happy.  I know I post a lot of dreary stuff about people who have died and who I miss like sunshine, but please know that I am okay.  This little space that I have claimed as my part of the internet is for my musings and ramblings and yes, sometimes outpourings.  Part of me writing about the things that fire up my neurones is to bring my emotions into sharp focus so I can examine them properly and clearly.  Even to dissect them at times.  Also, I like writing about things and people that matter to me, so that they too will share this internet cubbyhole with me.  I like them sitting by my side, as my fingers fly across the keys, making the only kind of taptaptapping music I know how to create.  Thanks to all of you who have expressed concern, but I am okay.  I just have a lot of feels sometimes, is all.   As Hayls would say, Big Love xx

…From The Ashers xx