I knew there was a reason I didn't like her...

Just reading through Salon.com's story "Why do journalists suddenly love Al Gore?" (you may have to sign in with a day pass to the site, but it's worth reading) and along comes that name - and I suddenly feel even more justified for not kneeling at this woman's feet when she came to speak at the Festival a couple of years ago.

Yes - MAUREEN DOWD. Yeuck.

There's a great link to Media Matters which details (to quote salon.com) "[h]er past columns on the subject of Gore, replete with false accusations and trendy sneering, [which] is must reading."

I know that I'm am so off-topic with The Picky Bitch. This blog has turned more into an Al Gore lovefest - maybe I should rename it! I thought that I needed an outlet for all those nasty thoughts I had about life in general and how stupid people are in particular but maybe life is too short to bog down in that kind of thing. It's SO much more rewarding to bitch about Maureen Dowd.

Yay Yay Yippee Yahoo!

Although I missed this - set the tape for the wrong freakin' channel, thank you very much - I was very happy to see this on youtube. What a ham, but I love him anyhoo...

Don't it make your brown hair blue?

I have finally gotten up the nerve to enter The World's Greatest Shave (or in my case The World's Greatest Dye Job). Every year the Leukaemia Foundation gets people to ask others for sponsorship to shave or dye their hair. This year is my turn.


For the low, low price of $1,000 (can I even write that without thinking of Dr Evil? And yes - I know it was $1,000,000!) I will be dyeing my hair to match Al's tie (as below). (Who needs an excuse to drag THAT photo out for another airing!?)


To clarify - not the whole head of hair - just big old streaks of it - think Lily Munster.
So if you want to sponsor me (and let's face it - I already know that the 3 people who read The Picky Bitch already have sponsored me but I live in hope of hitting the big time!), click here.

What is it with people who...

...have vanity plates that are the variations on the make of the car? The worst offenders seem to be PT Cruiser drivers. I have seen: PTCRUZ PT, CRUZR, CRUISER (at least that one could spell) and CRUZ. WHY??? Do they think that we are unable to determine the make of the vehicle and literally need to (mis-) spell it out for us? It is not even that the shape of a PT Cruiser could easily be mistaken for any other car on the road either. It has a big fat ass and you know when one is bearing down at you. It is not often that I am peering down the road, thinking to myself, "Hmm, isn't that a....? Oh, what is it again? Oh darn, if only the driver were courteous enough to have a vanity plate that would tell me the name of that car!" Other offenders are Porsche owners - my favourite - "P911" - make AND model! Can't beat that! You will notice that the cars are usually at the higher end of the vehicular price range - not often will you see "HNDAIXEL" or DHATSWIFT? Funny, that.

Seven years...

I've spent most of the day wondering if I should post something about it being seven years since my Dad died. My posts have been so miserable lately and I really didn't want it to be a maudlin entry. But it's getting late and although I went to visit his grave this morning - something I always feel a little ambivalent about as although I don't really believe he's there (I actually believe he's been re-born as my daughter as the resemblance around the eyes is spooky to me sometimes - maybe that's what reincarnation actually is - genetics), I do believe there is a part of him there although I don't really want to think too closely about that without getting morbid AND gruesome - I did feel as though I should mark the day somehow and not only by creating the world's longest sentence in history.

My Dad was a terrific guy.

[J. - are you crying yet?]

He was about as stubborn as a human being can be without being an actual mule and boy, did he love to argue. But he also loved to laugh - you never heard my Dad laugh as much as felt him - he would convulse silently, in place, progressively turning more and more red in the face until he finally exploded. Seeing him laugh made me laugh all the harder myself.

I think the thing about him being gone that I find the hardest to deal with is that he is really gone. I don't dream about him that often but just about a month ago, I dreamt that he was still alive and he was explaining to me that he wasn't dead after all but had been on a deserted island in the Pacific as part of a reality TV show that he had entered. The problem was that the only person who knew where he was, my friend Virginia (who has been dead for 11 years this April) had died - and so he was stuck on this island but had made the best of it by becoming an expert in the island's eco-system and was now actually very famous and rich because of it.

Weird and crazy dream-shit. Sometimes I really wonder about my own capacity for dream-fantasy - no wonder I wake up exhausted most mornings.

The best thing about the dream was that I got to hug him and I smelled him again. Dad always smelled salty and humid but not in a yucky way - he was like an ocean with skin.

God I miss him.

I miss him being a grandfather to my kids. My Dad was grooming himself his entire life to be a Nonno and only got to be one to my nephew for a little over 4 years. It sucks and it's unfair and it sucks.

Don't post comments about this to me, please. I just needed a vehicle to get this out but I don't really want to hear anything about it.

Thanks.

Sorry for the delay...

My friend, J., brought to my attention that it's been a while since I bitched so I thought I had better shoot off a little something to keep her happy.

Seems that 2007 is shaping up to be a 'doing' year for me. I think, facing 40 later this year, I've finally come to realise that all those tired cliches - 'life isn't a dress rehearsal', 'Life is a journey, not a destination' - are immortalised in coffee cups and those cheesy PowerPoint slide shows I get in my email for a reason - they are true.

So what have I been waiting for??? When is my life going to start?

• When I lose 15 kilos, be svelte and have perky boobs? Maybe - but have I done anything to make this a reality? I've always wanted this to happen without engaging in any form of exercise, discipline or dieting. Now I need to get my head out of my sagging ass and face the fact that it ain't gonna happen unless I start to think about getting off said sagging ass.
• When I suddenly get 'discovered' as a major writing/singing/cooking talent? By a Broadway talent scout who happens to read The Picky Bitch and walks by my window one day while I'm singing show-tunes and baking cupcakes. You know, I think one of the biggest mistakes in my life was to believe my own press. When I was in high school, one of my English teachers wrote in my yearbook that he thought I was capable of great things and that he was sure he'd be reading about me one day. (My Religious Ed teacher also said that she thought I could be a great religious leader but I just think she was just recruiting for the nunnery). So I have always believed that one day I would be a published author, living in a loft in New York and dabbling in a little off-Broadway musical action in my spare time. Wow, what an imagination. The only writing I've ever done has been this blog - and it's been three weeks since my last entry. Such devotion to my craft.

I think I've come to realise that my life is already in progress and for some reason - hitting 40? a new year that ends in '7', one of my favourite numbers? finally getting it? - I've already packed in quite a lot this year.

Things I've already done this year:

• Repainted my hall which was a very dark blue (which I actually did like for a long time) to a celestial blue - for some reason named "Jockey" by the weirdos in the paint-name department at the paint factory - must be the fumes. It totally changes the feel of the house for me, highlighting all the other walls that needs repainting - it sets up an expectation that the rest of the house is actually nicer than it is but maybe that's the inspiration I need to keep going. But my heart lifts looking at it so I guess that's a good thing.
• Painted the tile in my kitchen. Not that I didn't like the avocado green swirl on the cream tile - I loathed it. Another thing that I've been looking at for the last 10 years while cooking, washing the dishes, boiling the kettle and thinking, "Ick." Well, we have the technology, we can rebuild him. I went to the hardware store and there it was - tile paint - and now it's just cream coloured, which a la hallway, just makes the kitchen walls look grimy and yucky. So painting the kitchen is next. I think.
• Sorted through the kids' clothing in order to sell them at a`swap meet. That was difficult. I am so goddamned sentimental, it's nuts. I remember my kids wearing every piece and I have to be honest, I've still kept a bunch but I managed to whittle down the stuff to 2 boxes from 4. It's progress.
• I cleaned out the area under my sink. David Attenborough should have been on hand to document the wildlife inhabiting it. Icky cockroach carapaces everywhere. I have basically not opened those cupboards for about 5 years in fear of what was under there. Totally justified fear, I'm afraid. I'm embarrassed to admit it but nothing like a little cyber-humiliation to ensure it'll never happen again.
• I have started to ride my bike - only a couple of times a week so far - but I am loving that bike. So far, no obvious weight loss, boob-perking or svelteness making an appearance but it's early days ( is that grammatically correct? - it's early days - to say 'they're early days' sounds weird - comments, people? PB has fallen off the grammar perch tonight.)

And it's only 23 January. Maybe I will be a Broadway-starring, loft-dwelling, perky-boobed novelist one day. Or maybe I won't. But it will be my life - and that's just good anyway it comes.

I goat you a gift...

This one is for TJ and RC...

I've told this story a number of times now and thought it so amusing that I've decided to share it with the world...

While at a New Year's Day breakfast, I was talking with one of my oldest and dearest friends, RC about Christmas and what Santa brought us. RC's husband is a GP and often gets showered with gifts all year long from his grateful patients who are mainly old aged ethnic pensioners - those cute little old nonni that seem sweet but would put out a hit on you so fast if you messed with their families you'd be in concrete shoes before you could blink - you know the ones. He especially gets inundated at Christmas - I often think of the scene in To Kill a Mockingbird, where Atticus gets paid in potatoes and collard greens and imagine RC surrounded by bushels of whatever is growing locally in little old ladies' gardens that season. But she seemed particularly excited by one gift and so goes the exchange:

RC: We got a goat.

PB (that's me): Oh! I got a goat too! My friend TJ got me a goat through Oxfam. What a great idea - that's what we ended up buying for all our family overseas - we bought sewing lessons in Africa and a carpentry workshop and a business start-up...

I stopped speaking when I noticed my friend's expression as I was blathering on about Oxfam and goats and chickens...

RC: No, you don't understand - we got a goat.

And then I understood. We weren't talking Oxfam, we were talking carcasses.

RC then went on to describe the phone-call from her husband and the subsequent panic as she had to drive to his surgery to collect said goat. Like Laura Palmer, the goat (mercifully headless but otherwise intact) was wrapped in plastic. Luckily, she has a spare refrigerator (one of those half-fridge, half freezer jobs, I think) which she cleared out by taking out the shelves and found she had to shove the cadaver in vertically as it would not fit in any other way. While all the time shrieking "eeeuuuwww....eeeuuuwww..." as you would.

Now to most people, being on the receiving end of a goat would be an interesting space to be in. What the hell do you do with a whole goat? I don't even own a knife that would cut butter effectively let alone a cleaver that could do some damage to a real animal. My butchering skills lie on about a par with being able to tell the chicken thigh from a breast but even then sometimes those damned plump thighs will have me looking twice (damned hormone-injected chickens and their fat thighed ways!).

So what did RC do? What any self-respecting Italian girl does on receipt of a goat - she calls her dad.

[If my Dad were still alive, and I had made that phone-call, "Dad, someone gave me a fresh goat" - it would be news on a par with Italy winning the World Cup (AGAIN!) or them finally acknowledging that William Shakespeare was Italian after all (my father believed that anything good in this world naturally is of Italian origin).]

RC's dad sets a land-speed record for getting to her house and all is well. He has a wood-fired oven, people - this man knows what to do with a goat.

So all's well that ends well.

Now I'm hankering for a little marinated capretto....mmmmm...

What will the New Year bring?

Who knows?

New Year's Eve is not my favourite day of the year - too much expectation, too much pressure. Who are you going to kiss at midnight? No mystery there. Pretty much a given for me for the past 15 years. What are you going to wear? Generally something that becomes uncomfortable by about 9:30pm. And then there are the dreaded New Year's resolutions - eek. As I never drank enough to feel the need to give it up, one year I actually made the resolution to drink more - but less than a month later, I discovered I was pregnant. [Note to self: Possible correlation? Maybe.] So although joyful news, it was a bummer only because I actually believed I had discovered a resolution I could really get behind, for once.

The best New Year's Eve I ever had was six years ago - 31 December, 2000. The year 2000 was the crappiest year of my life - both my Dad and Grandpa died (within weeks of each other) and by the end of the year, my husband and I had been trying to get pregnant for 3 years. Things got better with the birth of my niece in early December and as I was a witness to her birth, (more or less - I was loading the freaking camera with high-speed film with my back turned to the action when she suddenly emerged - goddamned non-digital cameras and their film-requiring ways!) I think things got mentally (and obviously physically) unstuck as New Year's Eve saw me making that trip to the pharmacy to buy a pregnancy test. My husband and I were giddy and sick to our stomachs with the anticipation and lo and behold, after peeing all over my hand, the little line showed its pretty little line-like face. Sigh.

Apart from the joy of actually being pregnant - finally, at last, finally - the best part of the night was telling my Mum, who had sustained such loss. She was planning a very morose New Year's Eve, by herself at home but once we told her the news - she was recharged. It was wonderful. We spent the night with good friends who had also been through the crapper, V, emerging from chemotherapy for breast cancer and her husband K, having to witness his new bride enduring that hideous treatment. So K got smashed for all of us, my Mum and husband not being huge drinkers and it was a fabulous and glorious end to a shitty year and a wonderful start to the next.

So that's my Best New Year's Eve story.

Hope this one is full of joy for all and you get to kiss the person you want to and you're still comfortable in your stilettoes at midnight.

The Christmas Spirit hits... and not a moment too soon.

Is 6:30pm on Christmas Eve too late to be hit by the Christmas Spirit? I think what happened was I shared so much of my pre-Christmas angst with so many that I infected my loved ones and so by comparison, I seemed almost cheerful. Thanks to all who listened to my ranting and basically absorbed it for me - I feel a lot better now.

The summer of my discontent...

Okay, so maybe I should have titled this blog The Whiny Bitch - would be more apt at the moment. I really did start this blog with the intention of highlighting all those annoying spelling mistakes I stumble across on a fairly regular basis...

[NEWSFLASH: Was out at dinner the other night and on the menu, without a hint of apology was:

Brushetta

Now - what could I possibly say to that? At least, at least, they had the chutzpah to spell it the way most people pronounce it and I found myself in that surreal situation where I actually mispronounced it in order to not be wrong. Good grief.]

...but it seems as those it metamorphosed into a therapy session with the potential of having eleventy million therapists (although I am not that mired in my own sense of self-importance - I know that only 3 people actually read this - and I thank each and every one of you - you know who you are).

The humbugedness I wrote of earlier is not dissipating, but is actually getting a little worse.

Maybe it's just the heat.

Maybe it's just me.

Ho Ho Hum...

I suppose I should be thinking about Christmas but as it's still 6 days away, what's the hurry?

We're not hosting this year, which is fine by me as for some reason, I'm totally bah humbug about the whole thing. I think the reason is that, for some bizarre reason, I have most of my Christmas shopping done and the fact of being relatively organised is sitting so badly with me, I'm finding it hard to cope. I'm also in a soul-searching time in my life (in case you hadn't noticed) and while yes, I like Christmas and I like shopping and I like consuming - I also feel a little paralysed and confronted by the total sham of Christmas and what it's become. Actually, why stop there - it's not just Christmas but pretty much the whole world.

Is this the first true sign of "My Midlife Crisis"?

Why are people so mean to each other? Why do people continue to ignore warning signs - of relationships in crisis, of political games, of global warming? Am I the only one who SEES?? Surely that can't be true. Surely more people know that we're in that handbasket and where we're heading?

Ack. I'm depressing myself. Time to make cookies.

Elvis has left the building

Here I am posting in an undisclosed location, far away from home...

The first time I have left my kids and already the Guilt Gods (who travel with me wherever I go) have reared their ugly heads and bestowed their punishment upon me for daring to leave my sweet, sweet children behind: the airline lost my bag.

There is a happy ending as it should be here in a couple of hours but there was a good period of misery time in there, so the gods should be placated and I will be able to change my underwear by lunch time so everything is hunky-dory.

The real stinger? The airline made me pay excess baggage charges for the bloody thing.

Not happy.

Happy Birthday to me!

Yes, many happy returns and all that for moi. And I'm not afraid to tell how old I am. I am now 39 years old. Yes and hopefully I will be turning 40 next year. Funny, that.

I had a great day - went out a bought a bicycle for a combined birthday/Christmas present (people may feel that having a birthday close to Christmas is unfortunate but it actually has its advantages, one being that you can justify buying a big present for your birthday and tell people, ie. your husband, that the one present will do for both occasions and then by the time Christmas rolls around, they/he would have forgotten and then feels compelled to buy another - bwah ha ha!). I rode it home and didn't die. The boy (and he was a boy, bless him) at the cycle shop exchanged the seat from a ball-buster to one that didn't impinge on my ladybits too much - reasonably comfortable and no need to wear 17 sanitary napkins, a la my friend J.

Went out to lunch with dear friend, C. - we went to a Japanese place with a conveyor and were speculating on the success of a similar concept with cake. Should the conveyor proceed in a clockwise rotation, heaven help the poor schlubs who would be sitting to the left of us, is what I say. NO CAKE FOR YOU!

Found a nice work dress - in black, of course - is there any other non-colour? And of course, because it was my birthday, it was reduced and then when I went to pay, it was reduced again - the Shopping Gods really do look out for me, they surely do.

Went and spent a blissful hour in an unnamed chain bookstore which deep in my soul, I know is an abomination as I am a diehard independent bookstore gal from way back but DAMN - they have a fantastic cookbook section - what's a girl to do? Plus I had a 30% voucher to use so at least I know they were only making 10% off that deal which assuaged the chainstore guilt somewhat.

Friends came over for an easy dinner. Made some stunning cupcakes - Magnolia Bakery Vanilla with cream cheese frosting - used C's piping tip and bugger me if they didn't look like they came straight from a bakery. Blew out my one candle and made my wish and all was right with the world as I watched fireworks from the local fair to finish the day.

Aaaaaahhhh. Lovely.

Al and The Picky Bitch

Once upon a time there was a girl named Picky who lived in a far away land... She dreamed about ex-Vice Presidents on a semi-regular basis and was very excited to hear that one was coming to her fair city - and best of all, that it was her favourite ex-VP, Albert Gore Jr. When she came to think about it, she actually realised that she had no other favourite ex-Vice Presidents other than him as all the others were either crooks, illiterates or Republicans - and then when she thought about it some more, she realised that they were actually all of those three things pretty much in every case - but back to the story...

Al was coming to speak to her city about a terrible thing called "global warming". Picky has heard about this wretched phenomenon (and had read the book and seen the movie) but knew in her heart that she had to see her sweet ex-VP in person to get the full picture - actually, it was really more of a case of her wanting to exchange a bit of that dreaded CO2 with him - talk about carbon emissions! - but 15 years of marriage to her other sweet prince was gonna kinda sorta put the brakes on that fantasy.

The day arrived for the Climate Change Ball. What to wear? Luckily her fairy godmother, LaVisa (who knew how to take her where she wanted to be), suggested with a little mind-wallet merge trick that she does, to point Picky to the fabled Myer where she found a kicky little number with her name on it (and 30% off just for good measure). Add to the ensemble the snappy shoes referred to in previous posts and Picky was all set for the Ball.

She arrived in a daze, "Where was her VP?" Oh yes, there he was, making sure his Apple was in good working order. Oh how handsome he looked. Yes - he'd gotten a little chunky. And a little grey at the temples. And Picky really didn't understand what it was about Al that made her heart race - it was really that he made her brain race. She loved a smart guy - but not a smart ass. Yes, Picky's Other Sweet Prince was there as well (looking very snazzy in an outfit supplied by his fairy godmother aka Amexia) - he liked smart guys as well. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Then it was time to be seated and listen to boring old white men from evil organisations and corporations talk crap about how they were leading the way in creating, sorry, combatting global warming. And then much to Picky's surprise, the leader of her fair land (state, definitely not country) spoke and impressed upon Picky with his intellect, humour and not to forget - his damn sexy voice. Picky thought, Hmmm - he is a hottie... not in the same league as Al - could be a good substitute though, once Al left town, for her weird politico fantasies.

It was then almost time for the ex-VP to address the masses. But not before a bathroom stop. Was it fate or kismet (or are they the same thing?) that Al had to pass by Picky's table in order to perform his ablutions? Picky thought that it might be further intervention of her fairy godmother, this time in the guise of her friend Boss Lady, who grabbing Al's arm, told the stunned personage that he just had to meet his greatest fan, something that certainly he had never heard before. And then, and then...the first words that Al spoke to Picky, words she would never forget:

"Lovely dress."

"LOVELY DRESS"

HE LIKED MY DRESS! HE LIKED MY DRESS! HE LIKED MY DRESS! HE LIKED MY DRESS!

And then, Picky had her photo taken with Al (and her Sweet Prince) - and all was well.

They all lived happily ever after. Or at least until CO2 emissions hit 600ppm.

Oh Happy Day!!!

So here are the last 24 hours of my life, chronicled...

Things that made this the best day I've had in a long time:

1. Had a fantastic dream about Al Gore. No - not one of those dreams but just as good. We were hanging out together, talking about the state of the world. I told him how proud I was of what he was doing. At one point we were laying on a couch, head to toe, under a blanket (I told you - NOT one of those dreams, people!) just chatting - he told me he had 11 grandchildren (?) and how they were his primary motivation. I asked him flat out how he thought we were going to make out (make out as a planet - sheesh - how many times? It was NOT ONE OF THOSE DREAMS! Damn it) and he had to concede that he just didn't know - which he doesn't. Anyhow, I woke up with a great sense of calm, that maybe things weren't as awful, that there was hope. Nice.
2. Woke up in the morning to hear that although the polls hadn't closed yet in most states in the US, things were looking good for the Democrats. As I'd heard that before (Nov 2000, Nov 2004...), I wasn't putting much stock in it. Vowed I wouldn't look at the news until the polls had closed in California.
3. Had a pleasant morning hanging around the house, doing a little ironing (I know, I know...) - in all, a reasonably relaxed environment. The child was playing nicely and being ultra-cute.
4. Went out with child and my Mum. We did not irritate each other, I did not say anything mean - we had a lovely lunch together. The child was still ultra-adorable. We shopped.
5. Don't you just love when this happens... I'd been looking for a pair of shoes - shoes that would somehow make my Size 10 flippers look dainty and not quite so flipper-like. A hard ask, I know. Just happened to glance into a store that markets to girls, perpetuating the old "lamb dressed as mutton" look and saw a pair of shoes on the sale table that looked just the ticket. They were my size, they had a heel that seemed negotiable (I have a problem with bad knees and gravity) and they miraculously made my huge feet look somehow, I know, I know - dainty and not quite so flipper-like. AND THEY WERE ON SALE!! Reduced from $100 to $80 (not too shabby). But then... but THEN, people - pause for dramatic effect - when I went to pay for them - THEY WERE REDUCED AGAIN - YES! THE OLD '30% OFF THE LAST MARKED PRICE' chestnut! I LOVE it when that happens!!
6. Bought another skirt for a mere $20. AND my Mum (blessed woman) paid for it for me AND used her senior's discount (she doesn't look a day over 50) and so she saved on part of my birthday present and I got a new skirt - winners all 'round!
7. Had to go to the dentist (something that doesn't usually qualify for lists like these) but the end result is that I got my splint (to prevent me grinding my teeth to buggery) to wear at night and I suppose the inconvenience of wearing it is off-set by actually being able to keep my own teeth for a few more years.
8. While shopping, got a call on my mobile phone (and actually caught the call before it went to message bank - so rare an occurrence for me, it's not funny) from my hairdresser. I'd been put on a waiting list (3rd on the list too) to get my hair done (for my conference next week, for dinner with Al) and lo and behold - they'd had 3 cancellations and I could get my hair done THAT AFTERNOON at 5:30pm.
9. The weather was more in keeping with a November day - not blazingly hot and humid - sunny, yes - but also breezy - delightful.
10. Had an encounter with a make-up counter creature (they are not women - don't let anyone tell you that they are) - and managed to survive it with my self-esteem intact, my principles in place and a lip liner that totally matches my current lipstick - SNAPS!
11. Had a delightful haircutting experience with one of my favourite males who is not my husband. Mr G is sweet, funny, straight (and married to the lovely Mrs G who is also gorgeous), shares my political and social views and can make me look like a freaking movie star for AT LEAST five and a half hours at a time. Got a great haircut, some styling tips and even bought some product.
12. Got home to find out that the Democrats had swept the House and could (go recount in VA and MT!) take control of the Senate. The House had its first female Speaker (go Nancy!) and Rick Santorum had been defeated. Hah! I LOVE it when that happens.
13. Went to sleep with the splint and realised it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Slept well knowing that I wasn't cracking my teeth to smithereens while I slept.
14. Woke up this morning (as I woke up at 5am, it comes into the 24 hours since I woke up yesterday) to read online that DONALD RUMSFELD HAS RESIGNED! Glorious, glorious day - I LOVE it when that happens.

Husband is going around the house singing "Beautiful Day" by U2, Child 1 is rousing from sleep, Child 2 who has been up since 5am is cute and gorgeous - and I feel as though the tide has turned. I LOVE it when that happens.

Enjoy your day too!

Spell checking the SpellCheck:
Oh these are beauties:
Santorum: 'sanatorium', 'sanitarium' (those are obvious), but this is one is priceless - 'tantrum'
Rumsfeld: 'misfield', 'misfiled', 'Roosevelt' (hardly!), and the best - 'remorseful' - I can only wish!

When I saw this the first time....

...I would love to say that I thought:

• "Typical! Another example of the patriarchy objectifying women!"
  or
• "Wow - I should show this to every girl I know to show them how official beauty is constructed."
  or
• "This is disgusting - we should boycott all makeup brands until they stop this shit."

But no, what I really thought, the first time I saw this clip was:

"Wow! I want them to do that to me!"

(In my defense, I did think the other thoughts when I watched it for the second, third and fourth time...)

Sorry for the silence...updated

Yes, I've been busy. And actually a little worn down by all this inconvenient truth biting me in the ass.

• I went back to the hardware store and located the correct type of light bulbs and now I have replaced the front porch light, the back porch lights, the lights in my kitchen and bedroom, the lights in our bedside lamps and the light in the living room lamp. I read that the light cast by the energy-efficient bulbs can be a little harsh - they are in effect, fluorescent tubes - but I must say I've been impressed with it. It doesn't make me look any more hideous than normal. And I actually like the light it casts in the bedroom, which has always been a bit gloomy. So, ironically, I'm actually using the lights in the bedroom more. Great.
  
• I have been using the basin insert into the sink and not running the water so much which makes me feel all supercilious and smug. At least while I'm washing the dishes.
  
• Man of the House (snerk!) has made enquiries about solar hot water systems. About $4000 to install but will pay for itself in about 5 years, provided it doesn't have that charming 'inbuilt obsolescence' feature common to most household appliances and it craps itself 4 years and 364 days after installation. We need to figure out how to work that into the household"budget" (double snerk!!). But I think we'll go ahead with that sooner rather than later. We'll go hungry but at least we'll be clean.
  
• Prius...no, haven't gone there yet.
  
• I have caught the train to work and the bus back once a week for the past two weeks and it wasn't awful - because I don't go to work in peak time, I always get a seat and it's always amusing to see what the young'uns are wearing these days.
  
• I haven't tackled the phone thing yet. A friend told me that the phone company will supply a non-electrical phone if you go ask them for one and I could just get rid of the answering machine altogether which is a possibility as no one calls me anyway or knows to get a hold of me on the mobile. The jury is still out...

So - not all bad. I'm still trying to work my brain out of the "too little, too late" mental patterning. I have to believe that all these little things will make a difference. Look at what chaos those damned butterflies in the Amazon can cause with one wing flutter...damn those butterflies and their wing-flapping ways!

What I have done so far...

I went to the hardware store this morning and bought up on energy-efficient light bulbs and have installed 6 so far that have just required me to stand on a kitchen chair to replace. Anything that requires a ladder is beyond me as I do not own a ladder, but I do 'own' a 6'2" husband who is the next best thing...

Of course I dropped one, shattering it into a million pieces. The child says to me: "Silly Mama" which is the latest phrase that is uttered a bazillion times a day. I should have said, "I'm doing this for your future, sunshine!" but the fact of the matter is that it was a little silly of me to try to balance on a rickety kitchen chair on an uneven porch to change the light bulb. Damn these kids with their know-all ways!

And then I discovered that some of my light fittings are bayonets and others are screw in types. So I have to go back to the hardware store to get the different types. And buy a replacement for the one I shattered. So I'm only going to use a tank of petrol to get this all right...sigh...

I know there is a "How many Picky Bitches does it take to change a light bulb?"-joke in all this somewhere but I just can't think of a decent punch-line. I'll leave that up to you...

Something I've done already that I've been meaning to do for ages...

Our mailbox used to have a 'No Junk Mail' sticker on it that fell off at some point and I've been meaning to get a new one. I must admit that since becoming a mother, the crappy supermarket specials brochures would get me all excited to see who would have nappies on sale that week.

Well - no more. Forget the sticker - I couldn't wait until the stores were open - so I took to my letter box with a permanent marker and wrote: NO JUNK MAIL PLEASE (at least I said 'please') all over it. It looks totally classy and not 'white-trashy' at all!

But this is what gets me about the 'no junk mail' thing. Aren't those flyers already all printed? Does it really have an effect to ask to not have them? Don't the people stuffing them in mailboxes just ditch the ones left over? Is there another way to make my point? Should I be collecting them and sending them back (C.O.D.) to the store headquarters? Has anyone ever approached these chains about starting up a mailing list to be notified of weekly specials by email? I wouldn't mind that. It would make a change from being asked to enlarge my penis on a daily basis. Maybe I will call Supermarket HQ and suggest it? They all came on board about the plastic bag reduction thing - maybe this could be their next step.

The Spell Check prompted 'flyer' as a misspelling suggesting 'flier' so I looked it up on dictionary.com and it accepts both spellings - probably an American thing. It also informed me that a 'flyer' in Australian language (that obscure off-shoot of the Mother Tongue) is an 'exceptionally swift kangaroo' - who knew?

Earth in the balance

Tonight I finally went to see An Inconvenient Truth and felt I really had to get some thoughts out there. I wouldn't say it was enjoyable - it wasn't Little Miss Sunshine - more like Little Miss Radiation, really - I cried in the car all the way home. But I am trying to take on board something that Al Gore said in the movie that seemed to be summing up all that I was feeling. And to paraphrase, he said something like: in the face of all this data, a lot of people will jump straight from denial into despair, without stopping to ask what they can do to change things.

So, even though I did sob all the way home, I was also trying to think of ways to make changes. So I'm putting them out there as a matter of public record. If anyone happens to stumble across this blog, feel free to nag me about whether I've done what I am about to say I will do.

Things I feel I can do to not only assuage a guilty conscience, but hopefully make a difference:

• Replace the lightbulbs in the house with energy-efficient bulbs. I will not swap out the bathroom bulbs - it's one of those 4 in one deals with heat lamps but I will not use the heat lamps except in winter and only for the kids' baths.
• Track down a push-button or rotary dial phone and disconnect my electric phone and answering machine. They are both plugged in all day every day and surely that adds up to a lot of energy consumption over the year. Also, I find the damned things break down after about a year and need to be replaced (nothing like in-built obsolescence) whereas I'm sure I had the same rotary dial phone in my house for my entire childhood. Also, in blackouts, it's dangerous not to have a functioning phone - every house should have a non-electric phone as a matter of public safety. I am going to wire the house with extra plugs so we can move the phone around according to where we want to talk - there are already outlets in the hall and kitchen and I'll get one put in the bedroom. In the meantime, I'll just get an extra-long cable. Regarding the inconvenience of not having an answering machine: I don't have that many friends and the ones I do have my mobile number.
• Take the train to work one day a week. I drive because I need to get to school for pick-up but I can arrange for someone else to collect one day a week and when they grow up they may even thank me for my pathetic effort.
• Use a basin to wash the dishes in. I live in an old house with a single sink in the kitchen and am absolutely guilt-stricken every time I do the dishes because I let the water run instead of fill up the sink. I will STOP THIS IMMEDIATELY. I will not stop rinsing the dishes though because not rinsing dishes is just disgusting.
• Investigate installing a solar hot water system. This is a big expense but we were told recently that our gas hot water system is actually illegally installed and need to either get it moved or replaced. As good a time as any then to investigate changing systems altogether. Bank loan, here we come!
• Even BIGGER - look into the cost of getting a hybrid car. Our cars (yes - we have two) are reasonably efficient Toyotas. You have to get on a waitlist here for a Prius - so let's get on the waitlist and hopefully by the time we get it, we can afford it!
• Urge everyone I know to see An Inconvenient Truth. GO AND SEE IT! Seriously, this issue is bigger than politics, bigger than ideology - if you're a naysayer, entertain the thought that you might be wrong. I sure wish Al Gore was wrong, but sadly, I don't think he is. Let's listen to this Cassandra before it's too late.
• Jump from denial into action, not despair. This needs to be my personal mantra as my nature tends to get stuck in the negative groove. If I can get upset at bad spelling...you get the idea.

This is not The Picky Bitch's usual rant. We will resume normal programming as soon as possible...

• Okay, I couldn't resist - Checking the Spell Check:
  lightbulbs - apart from light bulbs, which is probably more correct or should at least be hypenated, it prompted LETTER BOMBS - dear Jesus - what kind of people are on blogger.com!!!
• waitlist - same deal - probably should be hyphenated but it prompted our SICK FUCK SPELL CHECK to suggest titlist - TITLIST ohhhhh... I just realised...it's ME who is the sick fuck... I was reading it as TIT-LIST but I think it means someone who has a title, as in Heavy-weight Titlist. Now I know what kind of people are on blogger.com and I'm one of them. I'm embarrassed.