Root, Shoot or Marry?

Root Shoot or Marry - A thousand words

Root, shoot or marry tests your imagination a little differently this week.

You can blame Joe.  A bit, at least.  He suggested famous Renaissance figures; I decided to take them two-dimensionally and (because life is too short for Art History fascism - Sister Wendy would agree) be a little loose with the definition of Renaissance.

Not much narrative to go with this lot.  I’m on a deadline for bouillabaisse by midday and I’m not sure I can trust myself to behave around Leda and her swan.   We’re trying out the Typepad thumbnail gallery - one for each gender.  I know I can trust you lot to let me know if it doesn’t work!

 

The Femmes

1. Mona Lisa - inscrutable but rootable?

2. Birth of Venus - she was in the Big Book of Seashells and as a child I worried she was going to fall over

3. Leda and the swan - the Correggio version.  Be warned: googling Leda will take you to a world of soft porn bestiality that you may wish you hadn’t found.

• 
• 
• 

 

The Hommes

1. Man.  A little existential, perhaps, but I think you’ll rise to the challenge.  Of course, my Older Man thing actually makes me lean more to the guy on the right... is that a sin?

2. Henry VIII.  The Holbein full-length that shows off those shapely calves of which Hal was so proud.

3. Charles V.  Look closely.  Got it?  Good.

• 
• 
• 

 

Off ye go.  Fornicate, spiflicate, set a date.

I’ve got fennel to slice.

mtc

Bec.

In case you didn’t see it - Julie Bishop vs the Garden Gnome

As mentioned in the RSM, there was a special campaign moment (my only memorable one, in fact) when Julie Bishop put her famous Death Stare to the test live on the Chaser’s election special, Yes We Canberra.

Re-presented for your pleasure.

 

mtc, it seems.

 

Bec

Root Shoot or Marry - Federal Election 2010 (the quick and dirty second draft)

Right, you lot.  I have 150 seconds left in my morning to write (rewrite, damn you interwebs) this post and get some tiny shred of online credibility back in my life.  Fortunately, the tragi-comedy of the 2010 Federal Election pretty much writes itself, and as long as I don’t pander to foreigners this time (no backstory here - go Google them if you don’t get it) we might just make it.

 

You know the rules? Of course you do.  And if you don’t, may I again introduce Google, Your Friend for “Root Shoot Marry Rules”.

 

Onward then (90 seconds to go).

 

The Men

Your choices begin with Tony Abbott - the Mad Monk, Mr Budgie Smugglers, Fittest Pollie on the Planet

AND Malcolm Turnbull - the Man who Might Have Been; an extraordinary millionaire climate change believer or just another Liberal?

And finally, of course.  Kevin ’07.  The guy who set the scene for the most presidential campaign we’ve ever had, only to be brought undone because he was perhaps too, well, presidential.

 

The Women (35 seconds - can I make it?)

I couldn’t resist the Woman’s Weekly photo and I give thanks and full credit to whoever took it.  I’m in need of a new mugshot myself, if only we did them like this at work...

And that’s the problem with being the first female prime minister isn’t it? You can never just be the PM, you can never just be a politician.  You have to be the childless one with the invisible hairdresser for a partner.  And if she had kids, and a surgeon husband I contend that that’s still all we would know about her.  (I give you exhibit A - banking CEO Gail Kelly - and no, I don’t have time to add a stupid link, I’ve already wasted five seconds on that stupid rant and I have to get this stupid post finished).

 

Maxine McKew - former star recruit, 2007 giant killer in Bennelong, one-term-wonder.  What do you think?

Finally, Julie Bishop.  I’d have loved to see her take up the LNP leadership - think of the Julie & Julia headlines we could have had!  Deputy Opposition leader and possibly about to be Deputy PM as Julia was before her... Possibly the best non-bottled thing  to come out of WA - did anyone else see her stare=out competition performance on the Chaser’s Yes We Canberra?

 

That’s it, 3 seconds left.

 

Make it worth it folks.  Root ‘em, Shoot ‘em, Marry ‘em and tell your friends.

 

And maybe, if I can do one this fast, there will actually be mtc.

 

Bec

There might just be another RSM or two in this blog...

mtc

Bec

Fuck it - - and that Yeats bloke? He knew a thing or two.

Mary inadvertently reminded me that I'd been quite remarkably restrained in the swearing department while the Professor's absence continues.

So:

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckity fuck and buggery.

Yeah well he's still in there.  He was being discharged and happened to get an a) conscientious and b) cardio trained nurse who realised he hadn't had an ECG since his admission on Sunday and whacked him back on the machine and found his irregular heartbeat was back.

Discharge cancelled. Angiogram scheduled.

Diabetes is the complication rather than the cause of his internment.

Enough.  I have a rather severe hypochondriac in my immediate family and I simply can't bear to go into more detail.

This blogging is marking a moment in time for me; a record of this stuff, for what it's worth.

Back home: children have eaten in front of tv two out of the last three nights and have exhibited predictably bratty behaviour.

We NEVER eat in front of the tv.  Well, only in emergencies.  At least I got them to all eat two colours of capsicum tonight - that's got to count for something, right?

EDITED (laptop battery died before I'd really finished, I find I have more to say)

As my warning lights flashed for a flat battery, there was still a line nagging at me, something I needed to get down while this moment exists: this moment that, without being overly dramatic, is reminding me of so many choices I've made and the consequences for my most precious people.

"Things fall apart".  It was Yeats, I knew that much.  Fucking laptop died before I could look it up.  Of course, it's sitting on my bookshelf too, which is where I found it, eventually, while thinking about whether to stay up and write more or not.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

Things do fall apart, when the pattern changes. I looked at the half-cleaned kitchen tonight and thought:"Fuck it (see, I do swear a lot normally, Mary) if the Prof wasn't around those children would TOTALLY have to learn to scrape their own plates".

Sure, they bring their plates to the kitchen, sure they line them up nicely waiting for the dishwasher, but there is a LIFETIME of sorting still to do after that, n'est pas? And because I do most of the dinner cooking, I rarely have to return to the kitchen to do the dog work of cleaning up, too.

But I have to, tonight.

Am I spoilt? I don't know.  There are certainly many people who are used to looking after three children alone or largely alone.  I suspect I'm just not used to it.  I fondly hope that I won't have to become used to it, yet.

It's the drudgery.  The drudgery that I felt we were only just escaping as the twins turned five recently.  The sheer physical grind of parenting and housekeeping that makes you so frigging tired.  That makes me a bad parent, a bad housekeeper, because I feel overwhelmed.

That's the taster I'm getting now, with my generation-older husband trapped in that stupid hospital.  The taste of what it would be like, if he was never here.

It sucks in a unique, a very special way all of its own.

I need him.

Not just for the sex.  For the dishes, too.

***

And thank you all. You're lovely, one and all.

mtc

bec

Cast your tag upon the water, and a horrifying sound will return

O Internets, how I love thee.

One little mention of how bare of memes my bloggy cupboards are looking in this new home and the care packages roll in.

Stomper Girl has tagged me for the Horrifying Sounds meme, which seems to be right up my alley in highlighting the heart-chilling aural memories attached to any number of everyday situations.

Plus, hardly any rules.  I love it.  There do need to be some limits, however, so I'm keeping it to truly horrifying sounds heard since we moved into this house 12 months ago.

Horrifying Sounds:

1. "crunch". From the back of the car as I'm reversing.  Is it a child's bike? Is it a child with crispy bones? No!  It's only both halves of our new front gates, invisible below the rearview mirror of the car and now scattered cross the footpath and road.

2. "About 55-60". The Professor telling me the number of people who had rsvp'd to our drop-in pre-Christmas party last year. I'd been thinking maybe 20...30 tops.

3. "Wiff glue." The answer given by my four year olds when, after admiring their beautiful hand-drawn pictures and saying how clever they were for displaying them above their beds, I asked them how they got the pictures to stay there on the wall.

4. "--------------".  Hear that horrifying silence? It's the sound of water slowly seeping from our new fishpond at the rate of about a centimetre a day. I found the bubbly patch of waterproofing paint last week and have almost conceded there is no way to fix it other than draining, drying, and starting all over a-fucking-gain.

5. "I wet my bed." Sigh.

6. "I wet my bed again." Fuck.  This means the pre-made second layer of sheets is now wet too, as is the spare quilt, and a third set of pyjamas has to be found...

7. "I'm itchy." Followed by: "This note is to advise you that your child/ren have been found to have headlice.  Please ensure this infestation is treated and all lice and eggs are removed before your child/ren return to daycare where they can be instantly re-infested by the children of the many parents who don't give a rat's arse."

8. "I can't start until the 25th of June". The words of my newest employee, the one who was going to be trained to fill in for me so I could fly to Melbourne on the 25th of June for a WHOLE WEEK of work-funded sleeping in a No-Snore zone and almost certainly a night of meeting Melbourne Bloggers and Gallery 112 commenters.

9. "That's a strawberry tongue!" Excited young doctor, showing off her diagnosis of the Gorgeous Boy's latest heritage disease: Scarlet Fever.

10. "Knock, knock". My brother, who'd fabulously offered to take the children overnight so we could go out, returning them the next day two hours earlier than expected.  Horrifying in itself? No, but couple it with the fact that we'd only returned home at 4am and then woken at 8am with that urgent desire of all parents to take advantage of an empty house... and before you could say boom-chicka-wow-wow, with that knock on the door we were scrambling for clothing and making sure the kitchen bench looked as if it had only ever been used for buttering toast.

mtc (and, probably, tmi)

bec

ps - the Warm Chocolate Tart post is written but pics are not cooperating tonight, will be with you soon.

pps - if you have a horrifying sound in your head, consider yourself tagged.