Then

The thrill of Saturday night, with all the promise of giddy lust and parading.  Planning outfits in my head for days.  Saving enough cash for drinks, and a secret taxi stash.  Phone calls to and fro to set times and places and double checking of outfits and who would get ready where, who would sleep where, who would do what with whom.  No thought of Sunday, other than to see her peek over the horizon if the night was a good one.

Now

Saturday night?  A night to be endured before the relief of Sunday- a whole day of our little family with beach and fresh juices and languid lunches.  Preferrably beers and footy on the couch, a few tunes, savour some air up on the top deck and then sweet blessed bed.  If we have to, we go out, but hopefully early.  So we can get home early.

Then

Hey, Hey It’s Saturday on your Mum’s donated telly and Barbie Doll shots of vodka & raspberry.  Three or four girls getting ready in one place, the bathroom humid with hairdryers and hairspray and perfumes intermingled.  Primping and parading and do I look fat in this?  Ice T or Frenzel Rhomb cranked up as loud as can be endured.  Salacious thoughts of what you might do to that guy from Chem Prac with the Rollins Band t-shirt and the celtic tatt, if he shows up.

Now

Funniest Home Videos on the flatscreen to keep the kids quiet whilst you squint to see if your bum looks too big, the clothes too ‘young’.  A shot of ristretto to keep you awake past 9pm and a fleeting thought of George Clooney in a suit, or even better, your own husband with his greying temples, that dips as soon as you see the dishes in the sink, your libido down the drain with the suds.  Michael Franti turned down low enough to give instructions to the babysitter.

Then

You head out as late as possible so you can hit the ground running.  A few quick pots of tap beer and then it’s onto the dance floor or the pool table, teetering on your heels, a sashaying walk.  Dancing and singing and dancing, pupils so big as to take up your whole eye, drinking in the lights, the boys, the night.  The night that blends seamlessly into tomorrow and you watch the sunrise, foggy brain registering the beauty.

Now

Meet at a friend’s place as early as possible to drink fancy champagne and craft beers, before you head out to a restaurant where a meal costs your (then) entire pay packet.  You comment on the quantity of the food and the quality of the service and whether or not the staff dote on you enough.  If you can convince the others you might be able to squeeze in a dance or two before it is curfew time, with the babysitter on an hourly rate.  Home for a few hours sleep before the kids wake up, and you watch the sunrise, foggy brain registering the beauty.

…From The Ashers xx

In an effort to introduce the Evil Geniuses to the concept of “I Quit Sugar” (AKA I Quit Fun, and pretty much life as we know it) we decided to change the rabbit habits and set them a task this Easter.   Make the little buggers work for their eggs.  So we procured some of those tiny, barely-a-mouthful eggs, as well as a vast array of ‘gifts’ for them to hunt down.  I call them ‘gifts’, for as Liam said half-way through the task, “The Easter Bunny is waaay more practical than Santa- he keeps giving us stuff we need, like Winter PJs and new lunch-boxes”.

And that, my friends is where you give yourself a little mental high-five, and recall the time they nearly sent you mad, whining and crying because the 110m walk home from the beach was “killing” their precious feet and grinding them into stumps.  Or something.

So it went down something like this:

12.17am: The Bunny was drinking a few too many Little Creatures pale and refreshing ales and trying to make up riddles

12.52am: The Bunny had sorted and laid out the clues and surprises.  The Bunny was a bit ‘tired’ at this point.

4.24am: Unit Two woke up and had to be sent back to bed (I lied, and said the Bunny hadn’t been)

4.50am: Unit One woke up and had to be sent back to bed (I lied, and said I had seen the Bunny lurking around, but he got scared away by their noise.  Unit One cried.  Unit Two heard the ruckus and cried too)

5.10am:  Both Units awoke properly and came upstairs.  There was a vague light, so no hiding the fact that the Bunny had been, and frankly I could see where this was heading… Sweet Baby Cheeses, is there no redemption to be had?

No, the Sunrise at Sunrise Beach did not compensate

And so on it went.  Eighteen clues, eighteen weird little presents with the odd tiny egg.  It took quite a while, which was good as I needed my Easter coffee after less than four hours sleep.  I’m not the Bunny I once was.

The clues. Some leave a little to be desired, but hey, there were Little Creatures to be consumed

The highlight for me, was this clue (which I quite liked):

It took them about five seconds to figure out it was “ice’ and go look in the freezer.

You maybe Evil you two, you may have deprived me of sleep and chocolate and sanity, but you are MY kinda geniuses.

Hope you had a happy Easter.  What is your Easter tradition?

…From The Ashers xx

Today I have cleaned the house from bottom to top. (This includes sorting all the Sylvanians from the Polly Pockets)

Today I have wrapped up all the Christmas presents in order to help a Santa out.

Today I have designed the Christmas menu and printed it out.

Today I have been to the shops to take back some presents because we had too many things.

Today I taxied the kid around in a Taco Boy car with Mexmusic blaring to try and drum up business for that joint.

Today I did five loads of washing, including all the towels and all the sheets.

Today I did two comb-throughs to check for nits (all clear, whew)

Today I ate eight Roses chocolates.

Today I drank two glasses of moderately fancy Savvy.

Today I let the kids play on the computers for over an hour without a break.

Today I did absolutely no exercise.

Today I reckon I spent about ninety-four minutes on the interwebs, namely the socs.

Today I spent too much time thinking about that stuff that I read on the interwebs, where people weren’t playing nice.

Today I sat on my top deck and ignored my family for half an hour whilst I read a magazine.

Today I missed some people who have passed away, and then dwelled on that a bit.

Today I let my Mum do lots of jobs.

Today I was too tired lazy to write you a proper blog.

So I guess there’s good and bad in every single day.

Hope you have more of the good in yours today… Or maybe exactly the same of each, for the sake of balance… Happy last day before Christmas eve day, day.  It’s very exciting, isn’t it?

Did I mention I wore antlers all day?

So, the Evil Geniuses have me again…

Just for something fun, we set up the little old dome tent today.  Down our sideway.  The kids played around in it, had a picnic lunch, lazed around in their sleeping bags*, that kind of thing.  It takes minutes to set up and not much longer to dissemble, so I thought: “Who could it hurt?”

Me, that’s who.

They asked if they could sleep in it tonight.

“Sure, sure,” I said, knowing it would be just like last time they wanted to camp in the lounge-room, and they lasted all of seven minutes before I cracked it with them for mucking around and they were banished to their separate bedrooms.  Or just like the time before, when they wanted to sleep on the mats on the floor, and they lasted almost four minutes before they realised they had perfectly good, comfy beds in which to repose.

So, we went through the charade of settling them into the tent, pretending they would sleep there all night.

Outside.

By themselves.

Exposed to all the child-stealing bandits who roam the streets of Noosa every night, praying to happen upon children allowed to camp down their sideways, so they can whisk them away and sell them to the bikie gangs that threaten to overtake our sunny state.  Or something.

Nath asked me how long I thought they’d stay out there.  I said, and I quote “If I was a betting chick, and you well know I am, I’d give them less than nine minutes.  I’d put fifty bucks on that.  And I’d give out awesome odds.  In fact I’d probably give out…(and here I made a lewd suggestion, which I shall not repeat in polite company)….”

To his peril Nathan did not take that bet.

And also to mine, because whilst I sat on the steps, waiting for some infraction or whinging or general teasing to escalate so I could banish them to County Beddington, they fell asleep.

What?

This has never happened.  Coco has never gone to sleep in under five minutes in all her life.

And so here I sit.  Typing this, at the back door.  Waiting for one of them to wake up, so I can legitimately move them back to bed, and go to mine.  My gorgeous, spongy, lovely bed.  I think I can hear it calling me (or perhaps that’s Nath calling, thinking he did take that bet with the lewd suggestion).

It is 10.47pm.  I just went and zipped the sides up on the tent.  No one moved.

They are not waking up, are they?

So where did you sleep last night?

How comfy was your bed?  Don’t tell me.

*It should be noted here that they are not only evil, but mental. It was about 30 degrees here today. 87 in that tent. That dusty, stinky tent.  They were in sleeping bags people.

I may have mentioned once or twice that it was our ten year wedding anniversary the weekend just gone, and that we had two nights of unbelievable freedom without the kids.  When you are unaccustomed to having time to yourself, without people smaller than you demanding that you be their slave, all of that liberty can be a bit overwhelming.

At first I did this:

And then this:

Until, finally I had to admit, I wanted, nay, needed some more intense pampering.  So I decided to venture outside of the actual hotel, and get a pedicure.  That was until I discovered I could get something called a ManiPedi for 50 bucks. Oh, hang on a minute whilst I consider thisSOLD.

So off I toddled to the nail place for a pamperama. I want to tell you it was lovely and beautiful and relaxing and I came out with awesome nails. One of those things happened.

I was ushered into a crazy looking chair, and motioned to choose a nail colour whilst putting my feet in the water.  No mucking around.  All of this was communicated by gesture and grunts as my technician spoke very little English.  I did what I was told. My tiny lady looked as though she meant business.

So I sat back and tried to relax as she started in with the first of her tools. I’m pretty sure it was a coarser version of the Microplane we use for grating parmesan cheese. It’s safe to say I was shitting myself. The microplane was followed by sandpaper, pliers, little sticks and a thing like a tiny orbital sander.  I wanted to pull away and run away, but I didn’t dare move.

As there was not much conversation I went into observer mode, and this is what I saw:

There were four other clients in the salon.  All were young, with perfectly plucked eyebrowns (I suspect they had just come from a ‘Brow Bar’, yes that is a thing now) and extensive make-up, and all were of large endomorphic body habitus.  I suspected all the primping and preening might have been an exercise to detract from the lack of actual exercise.  It wasn’t their size or over-grooming that was the real issue though, it was the fact that they completely ignored the girls who were kneeling before them, sloughing off their dead and cracked skin, whilst they texted and emailed and chatted about a boy one of them liked, or didn’t like, and whether they would wear the Chanel or the Gucci this evening.

Meanwhile the little slips of things, sanded and rasped and clipped and nipped the feet in front of them with speed and skill, also dressed from head to toe in Chanel and Gucci, but the fake kind.

I watched my lady, and tried to guess her age.  It was hard to say for sure but I thought she might have been the right age to be born sometime around the Vietnam war.  A time when US forces saw fit to spray and spray the people and the country with defoliants.  Defoliants that were later found to cause birth defects.  Birth defects not unlike her cleft palate, inexpertly repaired and stitched.

So I sat back and tried to relax and relish the experience, but all I could think of was how bloated and entitled I felt, having this lovely little lady slave away on my feet and later my hands, earning who knows what, but certainly not enough, per hour.  Breathing in even more chemicals from the creams and polishes. Into lungs that had already breathed in too much horror.

Eventually it was all over and I was told, “Is good. You done. You go now.” and I was released into the fresh air of the world and the sunlight of life, and I admired my nails, perfectly groomed and shaped, and painted a striking shade of (agent) orange.

Lest we forget.

Have you ever had a ManiPedi?  Did the fumes make you swoon?

The adult Ashers acted all cool* and urbane on the weekend and booked in some celebratory time (did I mention it was our ten year wedding anniversary on the weekend?) at The Emporium Hotel, in Brisvegas.

Hold on tight people, there’s gonna be a lot of photos here on the blog today, because for most of our experiences there just aren’t any words. Plus, I took shit-loads of photos because I had no children and two hands free, and time to do whatever I liked.

We checked-in, decked out in our decade-old gear, and hardly an eyebrow was raised, such is the way of the ubercool establishment (at least I think that is the way, I’m way too bogan and middle-aged to even know anymore).  We copped a few grins from the dudes bringing our luggage up, but that’s probably because they were thinking about how they were only in grade three when we got hitched.  Smug bastards.  They gave us this though:

so, they can have their yoof, we had free shit. I swear I shaved ten years off with the first glug.

Next, we lounged about our room because: no kids.  I got into my robe and tooks pics of me.

We sat by the pool, drank expensive beer, had a bath, went out for dinner, and had NO TIME FRAME FOR ANY OF IT.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I think it’s the time-frame thing that I find the most tiring, here in Motherland.  It’s the relentless tick-tick-tick of the imaginary clock that is with me, always.  Counting down the minutes until the next thing I’ve just gotta do.  Appointments, sporting events, dinner, deadlines and dates. Things to do, things to be checked off.  All the crappy boring things that will just bloody-well need to get done again tomorrow.  It’s relentless, and it wears me down some days.

So The Emporium was like a little Utopian world, where the clocks don’t work and no one ever has to leave.. Or maybe that’s the Overlook Hotel I’m thinking of (I am reading the sequel to The Shining** right now).

Or Jupiters.

Overlook or Emporium, it doesn’t matter, the demands on me were minimal and the rewards great.

Leesa organised these little beauties:

And when we got back to our room after dinner it looked like this:

with Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got To Do With It” blaring over the Bose speakers.  We pissed ourselves.  Take a minute to listen. It’s not really a luurve song…

Anyway, back to me.  I might have done this:

We got free drinks at Nant Whiskey Bar and free dessert at Tartufo. (Which by the way were both a-maz-ing. I want to say “sublime”, have always wanted to say sublime about a meal, but can I really do that without being a wanker?  Anyway, our dinner was magnificent, and if it wasn’t so unseemly for a ‘bride’ to lick the plate I would have done***.  Simmo at Nant was funny and full of info about Whiskey. Still, I had a cocktail, because Whiskey, even fancy Whiskey=Metho in my book. Sorry Nant.)  So I guess you could say this wedding dress caper really paid off.

Bye, bye Emporium, I’m not too cool to say it: you rocked.

Next weekend I think we shall frock up and have our ten year anniversary in another suburb, because: free shit!

* Is cool still a word? I’m too old and lazy to ask a teen.

** It’s caked Doctor Sleep, get ONTO it people.

*** Actually DID, but you’re not surprised by that are you?

**** This is not a sponsored post, but by golly, if any of you dudes want a proper post, all glowing and stuff, I’d be happy to do one… (For free shit of course…)****