The Shizzle That is Scrabble

 "What the h*** is that?" I bellowed in indignation at the doe eyed Scrabble geek in front of me.
"Errr...cat," he replied tremulously.
"Cat? CAT??????? But it has a 'Q' in it!!!!" I shrieked in disbelief.
"Oh..yes, 'qat'," he replied, "it is a word..."
"I KNOW it's a word ("you blithering idiot", I restrained myself from adding)!!! I also know it's usually spelled with a C!!!!!"  I was out of all charity by now.
"Yes, but it's not cat as in cat, it's qat," he attempted to explain.
"Qat??? QAT????WTF does THAT mean????" I challenged.
"Errr, I don't know. But I know it is a word!" he added helpfully.
"Listen buddy, if any kid in my class had spelled 'cat' with a 'q'...I would have MARKED THEM WRONG!!!!!!!!!" 
The doe eyed geek took his 12 046 points for 'qat' and gave me a hesitantly encouraging smile.
"I know a lot of words," he said, "but I don't always know what they mean."

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When I was a little girl my parents taught me how to play Scrabble. It was pretty straightforward: no slang, no proper names, no foreign words and no initials or abbreviations. My philosophical difficulties began the day my Bestie bought herself a Scrabble dictionary and started using words like 'joe' on a triple letter score. Now in my book, 'joe' is a name. Names are not allowed. Ah-hah! says the Scrabble buff; a 'joe' means a bloke or a lad....or, if you spell it 'jo' (ALSO a name! I point out)...a sweetheart! But that would be slang wouldn't it? And slang is NOT ALLOWED!!!!! You see where I'm coming from.

In addition to my objections on principle, whenever my Bestie and I, or Himself and I, play Scrabble, they end up leaving the room or making a cup of tea whilst I ponder the best possible move I could make with the letters in my hand. The old adage, 'a fast game's a good game', has been flung my way on numerous occasions! With all of this in mind, saying 'yes' to the invitation to join a friend at her weekly pub Scrabble tournament was probably my first mistake. It was certainly not my last.

In my defence, I had warned my geek friend that I was crap at scrabble.
"I spend hours trying to make ONE move" I protested.
"Don't worry," she said,"you've got a good knowledge of the English language, you'll be fine!"
"But I don't think strategically," was my next counter,"I can't do all those 'making words in two different directions in a corner' things that score huge points..."

"It's just a bit of fun," she said,undeterred,"it will get you out of the  house."

I knew I was in trouble when the gentleman in charge introduced me to a two button timer next to the game board.
"We each have 25 minutes to play. When you put down your word, you announce your score and then hit your button, that starts my timer.  A good turn should take only a minute or two."
He proceeded to draw an 'E', and before I had even drawn my seven tiles and put them onto the rack, he had kicked off with 'ulu', hit his timer button and was looking at me expectantly. Aside from the fact that I was now chewing up valuable seconds fumbling my tiles onto the rack, I had never heard of the word 'ulu' in my life! I didn't even bother to challenge him. As it turns out, ulu is a type of Eskimo knife. Obviously.

I tried valiantly to begin with, but the longer I took to come up with my 20 point word, the more time he had to put together a 65 pointer that stuck an 's' on the end of something I'd done and ran in two other directions utilising the double letter and triple word score and using up all seven of his tiles for a bonus 50 points. Outclassed, is putting it nicely. When we got to 'qat' I lost all charity and reached for my 'ulu'.

You see my difficulty with Scrabble is that I was lead to believe it was a game of vocabulary and spelling (I blame my father) but last night I was beaten by people using words such as 'de', 'aua', 'qat' and 'rep'. I was also reliably informed that 'mofo' is now an acceptable Scrabble word. I am speechless. Vocab and spelling, my posterior!!!!

I mean, look at this list of acceptable two letter words as printed on the Scrabble Bookmark from 2007?

AA: rough lava with holes. Really? I thought that was called pumice, or scoria. I'm pretty sure that, as my geologist father dragged us around volcanic sites in my childhood, he never picked up a piece of rock and declared,"Look girls, here is a piece of aa!!!!!" He might have called out AA when he dropped it on his foot of course but then, we already have a word for that. And anyway, I have read through a wikipedia article on igneous rocks and they did not ONCE mention 'aa'. Ergo, it is a probably a regional term (Hawaiian perhaps?) and therefore a foreign word and therefore NOT ALLOWED!!! (Of course on searching wikipedia for aa, I did come across this which confirms my opinion that it is a Hawaiian word and should therefore not be allowed. Clarence Dutton has a lot to answer for I'd say.)

And what about this?
BO: man (US slang)...YOU SEE???? SLANG AGAIN!!!!!!!!!
(and anyway...shouldn't it be Bro...but no...THAT would be an abbreviation!!!!!!!!)

And in what language is SI a musical note???? Another quick check of wikipedia confirms that is not a part of the sol-fa tonic scale! Alright, it may have originally been the seventh note....but it NO LONGER IS!!!!! Some may say that a si is an ancient mythological being but again, that is a Celtic word and Celtic words are NOT ENGLISH! Which also rules out 'ae' (one: Scots),'oe' (a grandchild: Scots) and an 'oy' (grandfather: Scots). And what about allowing 'ja'...(yes: from the German)???? FROM THE GERMAN?????? IT IS BLOODY GERMAN!!!!!!!
Foreign language and therefore not allowed.

Do not even start me on 'wo' (grief, misery). What happened to the 'e'?

My outrage increased throughout the next game, to the point that I couldn't really be bothered any more. And when my timer went over into the negative whilst the other player still had 10 minutes to go, there may have been tears. After all, I mean, when someone puts down 'wifey' as an acceptable word.....(slang? hello. anyone? slang!!!)

When I got home and showed Himself the 2007 Scrabble Bookmark, he wrapped me in his huge, warm, comforting arms and announced that we ought to start a 'Fairplay' Scrabble league.

 I'm with him.

What To Wear When You Realise The Party Is 70s Fancy Dress At 6.45pm.

It's amazing what one finds in one's wardrobe.

Although, to be fair, they weren't actually in my wardrobe, more in my dressing up bag...

That shirt has an interesting story though. My dad bought it for my Mum in China. Yes....I know. She was going to send it to the Op Shop but I rescued it for my collection. I mean, it's just too deliciously awful to throw out! Her comment at the time was "What in the world made you think I would EVER wear a shirt like that!" Dad looked mournful, "And I made the lady in the shop climb up a ladder to get it because it was the last one left on a model right up on the top shelf!"

One does wonder what was going through his mind at the time, however, I think I may have solved the problem. A careful look at the front placket will reveal three, what appear to be, soccer balls! And my Dad has always loved his football....... Happy Birthday Dad! I will always think of you when wearing this shirt :-D

The Wonders Of The Internet (are temporary it seems)*edited

Well it appears my crack at picasa to 'lift it's game' (see bottom of this post) has put their noses out of joint! Read on.




My dad put an album up on picasa web sharing and it turns out you can post directly from there to blogger!!!!
(Well, you could for two whole days apparently. After that you get this white rectangle...see above. Mind you it did let me download so here we are after all)

This is Himself and I on the rare occasion of 'socialising at the same time'.


Well, at least I am socialising. I am not sure what he is doing. Gritting his teeth perhaps?

Now the only problem with this web sharing thing is that you cannot upload multiple photos on one post. Come on now picasa, lift your game :-D

(To be fair, the problem could lie with blogger. P'raps they don't like the link?)

Fifty Schmifty, Gimme The Microphone!

It's pretty crap having a birthday 10 days out from Christmas. When I was little my Mum wouldn't put up the tree until after my birthday so that it could be kept separate from Christmas.
Now of course it's impossible to split them up so, what with that and the end of the school year thrown in, it's easier to just ignore the thing.

Of course, that wasn't going to happen this year. It was the dreaded 5-0.

I suggested to my Bestie and family that we hold off on any celebrations until January when people were more likely to be available and I could actually turn my attention to planning and organising the thing.

"But we have to do something!" insisted The Bestie and so I put on my totally self indulgent hat and said,
"I know. I would like to go to La Sing, early on in the night when there is no one there, and sing karaoke to my heart's desire!"
Done.

Now I need to explain La Sing. My Bestie described my second ever visit to this peculiar and rather seedy Adelaide night spot in her blog post several years ago. It is a small and slightly tatty room with badly painted Hollywood icons on the walls, a laser lightshow from Hell and outrageously over priced drinks: wine out of a cardboard box for $7.00 a glass, you know the kind of thing. But until about 10.30 at night it is basically empty!! You can sing what you like and there is no one to judge you or, more importantly, take up mike time. The Bestie's Beloved introduced us to this classic a few years ago and whilst I have only been there 3 times it remains a great self indulgence.

So that was my plan. Just The BA, The Bestie and her Beloved, Himself and the Bestie's parental body. We could be as silly as we liked and be outta there by 11pm when the crowds of drunk twenty somethings arrive to sing 'Fly Trash Hip Hop Ho ' songs.

Imagine my surprise when we walked in the door and a scattered group of faceless people through the laser lights began to sing Happy Birthday!

I had to peer pretty hard into the gloom to begin to see familiar faces. Worryingly, the first two I recognised were my Pastor and the Priest from my old Anglican church!!! Added to this were two very delightful but upright co-worker ladies from my Christian school and a good friend with his new wife whom I don't know very well. This was going to be interesting!!!!!!!


My lovely husband Best Friend and daughter had been working their joint bottoms off secretly emailing all my friends to get them to surprise me. And I had had no idea!! This wasn't quite the empty room for self indulgent karaoke singing I had imagined :-D But what the heck! Throwing caution to the wind I reasoned, 'This is my birthday...I'm an old fart now and if you can't make a fool of yourself on your 50th birthday, when can you?' Bestie's Beloved started the night off, as the suave MC he is, hauling me up to sing 'Mac the Knife ' with him and the flood gates were opened.

Pretty well everyone got into the spirirt of the thing. Another group of party girl work friends appeared after about an hour and yet another group shortly after that.

The last of us left at around 1.30am. It was a great night. After 10pm or so we had to compete with the rest of the public in the singing stakes but the DJ was very considerate and rotated the requests around tables rather than simply playing them as they arrived in a list so we didn't have to wait too long to get our mike on. The BA was stunning , singing song after song and gaining a worrying crowd of admirers from the General Crowd. Don't worry, Mother was close on hand!!

A big thank you to all my friends and family who came together to give me such a wonderfully self indulgent night. It was a fitting way to celebrate 50 years of 'Look At Me'.

Are We HAWT???????

Spot the old lady amongst the young 'uns at the Formal last Tuesday night!
(Why are upper arms such a give away?????)
In moving schools I am going to miss this group of talented, enthusiastic party teachers.
From left to right: Dance, Drama, English/Hist, PE, Teacher Librarian/IT, Maths, German.

The Post Where I Catch Up On Everything.....

First of all there was New Year's Eve; hot, with very good company, swimming and some of this:




Then there was the January Ugly; a party by our pool where we started off with this:


followed up with a bit of this:


moved on to this:
decided it was the right occasion to finally open this:


(21 Year aged Chivas Regal, bottled in honour of the Queen's Coronation in 1954(?))
which resulted in faces like these:


and the pool looking like this:

!!

After that there was a whole Sunday in recovery mode.

Then I started sewing again.
This is one is for Himself and once more a closer look at the print is in order.


And finally, there is THIS!Whew.

The holidays are roaring rapidly towards their inevitable fragmentation and conclusion. Next week the teachers are back for two days and, realistically, probably three. We then have a four day weekend in celebration of Australia Day and it's back to the frontlines on Wednesday the 27th :-(

We also have to cross the bridge that is the Baby Angel's new school. She gets back from Sydney on Friday and then there will be time for the nerves and dread to set in. I'm hoping Grandma and Grandad will take her on her first day to smooth the road.

Meanwhile, I am making the most of my time with Mum and Dad. I had better start doing some school prep though; I have started having those 'back at school in front of the class and having never looked at the text book before' dreams!

Brightly Dawned Her Wedding Day

After about ten years solo, my Bestie has finally tied the knot with The Amazing Mumford.

Sunday afternoon saw us arriving in the parklands under a savage 36C sunapproaching the vine covered gazebo and witnessing their exchange of vows.


Afterwards we retired to a local hotel for a cocktail reception. That's all I have time for tonight. More juicy details to follow when I am back on en even keel.

Play It Clean*

Well, nothing since Tuesday...what have I been doing with myself? Painting tables in Kidzone (Sunday School) and making up Kids' Kits for use in church when there's no Kidzone if truth be known.

Oh and quilting.

Predictably things did not go to plan; I decided the top of the quilt was too narrow so I rearranged everything again. But I am much happier with it now and I spent Friday sewing it together. Only got about half done though. Phew, it's hard work! Fiddly! Mind you, I was working under stressful conditions; Himself had a deadline and he was waaaaay cutting it fine. He sat through in the other room effing and blinding and calling the computer, the files, the internet and the clients just about every name you can think of. It was not pretty and not conducive to relaxing quilting. I shut the door on him after awhile.

He was pretty stressed and sleep deprived. He spent two allnighters on this animated presentation for the North Adelaide Football Club's presentation night. He came to bed at 4.30am the first night and after a few snatched hours went at it again all day and came to bed at 5.30am the second night! That man lives on caffiene. Still, last night was the 'do' and it all went very well. I was really proud of him and all his hard work although I was mildly surprised and relieved to see that not one 'f@#&' had slipped into the presentation! Miraculous really considering the amount that were flying through the air. Fortunately we are 'kidfree' at the moment :-D

He made a little bit of history too as the club screened the presentation over the internet in real time as the audience were watching it. It was a record of the matches that year and a count down of the votes gained by each player in the 'Best and Fairest' Competition. The AFL (big league) do a similar thing on Brownlow Medal night but as far as we know, in Australia, no other clubs or State Competitions have done it. This meant that ex pat fans of the club (and we know there are many because the site stats tell us we get hits from places as diverse as London, Singapore and Dubai!) could watch a round up of the year's matches and player performances, leading to the announcement of the B&F winner, from the comfort of their own laptops. Next year we want him to do a live webcam of the acceptance speeches! Then again, knowing how riveting the speeches of young footballers are...maybe it's not worth it!
("....And I'd like to thank the coach and the back up team and the massuesse and my parents...")

Oh and if you've got nothing else to do, see if you can find anyone familiar in this gallery of elegant diners......

Off to quilt some more and enjoy my last few days of childfree time and holidays :-(

* The Club Song

Bush Dance? No Thanks Miss, I HAVE a Life!

Every now and then school obligations which, at the outset seem onerous, turn out to be a lot of fun but I knew this one would be OK.Without giving too much away, our school started 26 years ago in a factory, of sorts, and through grace and blessing has been expanded to almost completely take over the original building. Our whole topography harks back to its industrial heritage and our assembly hall is....well..a shed!! On Saturday night we held our first ever annual Bush Dance.

Our ever creative principal had ordered the maintenance staff make up a neon sign for the occasion. Cut out of the ubiquitous corrugated iron; which was once the practical choice of the suburban gardener or country homesteader and has now been elevated to the lofty heights of architectural chic; the back lit sign was resplendent as you entered the assembly area. Bales of hay and fairy lights (which don't really show up in these photos) completed the look and the bush band made good use of the school's AV screens and stage facilities. Contrary to the appearance of these photos; which were taken towards the end of the evening when most people were outside recovering in the fresh air; there was a great turn out of over 100 students, staff, families and old scholars. The dance floor was packed for each set as we stumbled and whooped our way through old favourites such as 'The Drongo', 'The Troika', 'The Barn Dance', 'The Swedish Masquerade' and 'The Charge'!! On Sunday, I briefly wondered why my calves were so sore.

I forced the BA and her friend to accompany me of course. When she looked accusingly at Himself and asked "How come YOU don't have to come?" he replied, with rather more than seemly cheerfulness, that he was babysitting. I have long since given up trying to get my husband to attend such events. >:-(

She had a good time though. The two of them didn't exactly mingle but they did dance most dances and both sheepishly admitted they'd enjoyed themselves. In fact, many students who had been 'forced' to attend had to admit what good fun it was! I don't know, in my day square dances and bush dances were a great way to meet people and have a laugh. No one expects you to get it right and any casual observer watching our principal, his two sons and various friends charge around the dance floor pulling circles out of shape and pushing each other out of the way to grab new partners, could see the attraction of the whole physicality of the event for young men.
These pictures don't quite capture it do they?

That's cos I was too busy dancing to take photos!

Sometimes work can be fun.
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Life is ridiculously busy at the moment and I am being very remiss by taking time out to post at all. There is more to share from the weekend and of the progress of the Musical costumes but it will have to wait until tomorrow.

Things You Learn At A Quiz Night: 2009 version

As I've mentioned before, my Bestie runs a charity. Last year the quiz night was a great success and lots of fun but we only came 4th. THIS year we had Himself, AFM and Dr O'C , Kindergarten Friend and his beautiful partner The Railway Girl, The Bestie's Mum and Dad and The Gay American (yes, he does have a name but several times at the Quiz Night the MC (Mumford) referred to him as The Gay American and so he shall be). The Baby Angel and Small Boy also added their expertise and believe me there were times we needed it! The net result? SECOND!!!!!!

I am so excited about this because part way through the night we were coming a very sorry middle of the pack indeed!.

So what did I learn THIS time? (Get ready trivia buffs...)

The dingo was the first non-native animal introduced to Australia.

Our Deputy Prime-Minister's partner is a hairdresser!

The four faces on Mt Rushmore are: Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson and Roosevelt (Teddy)
(Thanks AFM and GTA)

The faunal emblem of South Australia is the Hairy Nosed Wombat

There are 5 verses in the Australian National Anthem. (who knew???)
(Thanks TGA)

The first overseas flight of Qantas (Queensland and Northern Territory Air Service) was to Singapore.

The first drive in bottle shop in Australia opened in 1953!!

The No 1 song of the Hottest 100 Hits for 2009 was...The Kings of Leon: Sex on Fire.
(Thanks BA)

Australia has 115 species of venomous snakes.

Tenzin Gyatso is otherwise known as The Delai Lama. (Thanks again TGA)

Our former Prime Minister Paul Keating once managed a rock band known as The Ram Rods.

So, lots of new information there! There were a couple of disputed questions however. To begin with they asked where the three major Australian railways met up and gave the answer as 'Quorn'. Now our table had specified 'Port Augusta' with a fair degree of confidence and, since some of us had lived in Quorn in the past, we (they) were a little surprised at the result.

Bestie's Dad was adamant that the trains had not run into Quorn since 1985 and Railway Girl, who works for said railways, assured us that the National Office for something or other was being built at Port Augusta precisely because all three railway lines met there!!Well apparently we weren't the only table to be surprised and a little skeptical at the answer. So many people disputed the call that there was some quick wireless googling (I assume) and the answer was revised to Port Augusta or Crystal Brook! Apparently there's more than one place where the railways meet today! Good result anyway. One more point for us.

Not so satisfactory was the outcome on the disputed name of the eldest member of The Jacksons! Having been a really saddo fan of the Jackson Five circa 1973, I very quickly supplied the answer to this question. Of course, Jackie was the eldest member of the Jacksons, the others being Jermain, Tito, Marlon and Michael. Our table seemed a little suspicious of my answer. Perhaps 'Jackie' seemed a little too obvious? Regardless; I knew I was right. I mean, a fan is a fan and I had read plenty of those hideous fan magazines which detailed every known fact about each member of the group from their star sign to their favourite colour and shoe size. Jackie it is!

Imagine my surprise, nay horror, as they announced that the eldest member of the Jacksons was Jerome!!!!!!!!! Jerome?????????? Who the f*** is Jerome?????????????

Now I had to admit here that somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that Jackie's real name was not actually Jackie, in the same way that Tito's was actually 'Toriano', but for the life of me I couldn't remember what it was. Maybe it was Jerome? Regardless, he was well known as Jackie and if it came to choosing the correct member of the group I was certain I had done that! Imagine my outrage then when our answer sheet came back marked incorrect!!

Down to the judging table I marched but to no avail. According to the judges 'he now calls himself Jerome' and that was all that mattered. No points baby!! By now my whole table were in mocking mode. 'Jackie' bwahahahah! As IF!!!!!!

You know that white hot knot of fury and injustice that burns when you KNOW you are right and no-one will listen? It's a feeling I remember distinctly from my childhood and the flavour has not improved with age and 'maturity', hem hem.

Back at home I was immediately onto Google. Was my childhood an illusion? Had Jackie Jackson existed only in my age demented imagination??

By the first hit I was exonerated! But we all know that Wikipedia is anything but reliable so I tried a few other sources.....

HA!!!!

Not ONLY was Jackie definitely the oldest member of the Jacksons, but his given name was NOT Jerome...it was Sigmund!!!!!! In fact, Googling Jerome Jackson gave me some little known jazz crooner who had absolutely nothing to do with the famous Jackson Five family!!!!!

Sweet moral high ground.

OK so the extra point would not have made any difference to the final score but at least I was vindicated. You bet I emailed all the links to everyone who was on our table. :-D


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
By the way: A belated happy Birthday shout out to my Bestie's Beloved, Mr Mumford! Was great to see everybody there on Saturday, celebrating you. :-)

image credits

quiz night

indian pacific

jackie jackson

With Or Without

With?


Or without?

As it turned out I had to go 'without' for three days because after a little snooze on the long taxi drive home after the Ball, my glasses slipped off my lap and were lost on the floor of the taxi. Unfortunately, feeling around in the back of a dark taxi with no glasses on is not conducive to finding said item. Fortunately the taxi driver was kind enough to give me his number and I was finally able to pick up my glasses from the local police station today. It has been an uncomfortable few days.

So the vanity which caused me to remove my glasses for this shot was my downfall. And in the end I think I like the 'with' picture better anyway!!!!

Crafty Tuesday: The Presentation Dinner

I finally have something for Crafty Tuesday!!

Remember that I had been dobbed in to help organise the social events for the NS14 Nationals this year? Well, after the success of engaging Mumford's band I had the frustrating task of convincing the Committee (mostly men) that the laminex tables in the yacht club were not sufficiently flash for a National event, and that the 4 or 5 faded yellow seersucker tablecloths retained by the club for, oh, I don't know...polishing windows????? were not going to cut it for our party of 127. They eventually capitulated and allowed me the extraordinary sum of $115.00 to hire 15 white table cloths.
I had already decided on a a nautical/seaside theme in keeping with the 'on the beach' nature of our club and its relaxed, casual, 'yachtie' atmosphere. A bit of quick web surfing for ideas and it was off to the Cheap Shop/Cheap as Chips/Reject Shop/Two Dollar Bargain Shop, to see what we could rustle up. This is what we managed!!



Trying to keep the budget down, I avoided the expensive, helium filled balloon bouquets favoured by many event organisers. Instead, I found these little enamel pails, filled them with sand from just outside the door and went from there. We inflated the balloons ourselves and tied them onto BBQ skewers (available for a song at your local supermarket). I found bundles of faux grasses which could be split to furnish up to four tables and some contrasting spiral topped cane at $5.00 a box. The wicker balls, resembling a kind of marine tumbleweed, were $6.00 a bag and I sent my sister and the kids out to collect the seashells for nothing.

Add a scattering of napkins/serviettes in NS14 association colours and by the time the guests arrived the place was looking tophole and festive if I say so myself.
The committee were suitably impressed and will perhaps, in future, rethink their casual attitude to these events ( if the comments of the interstate guests are anything to go by).

Do you know what this is? Well, it is a seating plan and it took the association president and I about an hour to complete. The idea was to put a South Australian boat on each table (as we were the hosts) and to ensure that all parties' numbers were considered in order that no-one be split up. To fill the tables of ten we juggled the variously sized 'parties', ensuring sponsors and club officials were placed on the appropriate tables, and judiciously placed very spiffy placecards, with boat or family names printed on them, around the room. I crossed each boat or family off a master list as we placed them and added up the number of people assigned to each table.
It was a gruelling but ultimately satisfying task as we managed to seat everyone.
Now, do you know what all that turned out to be? A...



Obviously within minutes of arriving, subtle relationship dynamics, of which we were unaware, dictated the immediate swapping of placecards with scant regard for the number of people being disadvantaged by the moves. I, of course, having left the venue at 4.45pm and barely having time to go through 5 of my 6 thousand outfits, did not arrive back until 6.15pm. Himself, who had been operating independently in the picking up of his boys etc, was already there and deep in conversation at the bar.

"Where are we sitting?" he queried.
"Just here," I indicated, noting a slightly larger number of persons on the table than I recalled 'assigning'.
"Our boat name's not there, I can't find it on any of the tables," he scowled (have I mentioned the disappointment with the mainsail?)

I cannot do justice here to what happened next.

I seated myself at the table which I knew I had assigned to our party of 6. Our placecard had mysteriously vanished, and I mean vanished because Himself spent sometime combing the room to see which table had been the happy recipient of its presence. The other table members began to move off for the buffet meal.

"Quick," I hissed, "come and sit down!!!"
"There isn't going to be enough seats," Himself (logically) insisted.
"I don't care," I snarled through venomous fangs, "This is OUR table, I F***ing organised it!!!!"

You can hear where this is going can't you?

Himself (a sponsor, committee member and tireless worker for the event) myself and my sister, sat at a laminex table with no decoration or table cloth at the very back of the room as we ate our meals because three seats at our table had been taken by interlopers.
I was livid. As far as I could determine, we were the only large party who had been split up. I hope you appreciate the irony of this. I did NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

However, after some time, the presentations started and we moved Himself to the top table where there was a space so that he could make his sponsor awards. I actually stood at the bar with my sister to make it easier for everybody (and to dull my spitting rage with a few quickly quaffed rum and cokes) so the evening continued on in a more satisfactory fashion after that.

Mumford and his gang put on a terrific show which added to the ambiance nicely. They played their hearts out to an empty room though as all the yachties proceeded immediately out onto the balcony to dissect the events of the week. Nevertheless, there was a solid core of kid supporters (including the Small Boy) who sat stoically in front of the band clapping and dancing at every turn. Towards the end of the evening many people came up to me and thanked us for the wonderful event and commented on the band, whom they had enjoyed from the distance of the balcony all night!

At one point during the evening, I noticed a crowd leaning over the balcony laughing and clapping. No 2 son beckoned us over.
"Mumford is abusing an animal," he laconically informed us.
Mumford it seemed, was on the beach below performing a routine with his Jack Russell accomplice, Q. This involved a bullfighting scenario, some juggling and clever little Q sitting for several minutes in a pose resembling a meerkat. Later the Small Boy came to me in lathers of excitement telling me about Mumford's ribbon which when blown upon turned into a steel pole!!!!

So all in all it was a pretty good evening and although I am not suggesting I should do this sort of thing for a living, it was a lot of fun....... right up until the bit where they took our seats (spoken through clenched, venemous fangs)!!!!!!! I guess I need to work on that bit :-)

For more clever craft ideas, check out Carrie at 'Barely Controlled Chaos' although I have just noticed she has rescheduled until next week!!!!!! Curses. Just my luck :-)

Who Let Her On The Microphone?

I have finally finished downloading my holiday photos and will shortly begin the inevitable recount of events but firstly, I feel I must regale you with an account of Wednesday night's frolics.

I am afraid when I am 'let off the leash,' ie children and husband both away and no school tomorrow (yeeeeehaw), I seem to have no self control whatsoever.
I was going to give you my 'version' of events but The Bestie has beaten me to it and tells the tale as well if not better than I could.

Duck over and see what slander she is spreading!

Then come back and tell me how you don't believe a WORD of it!!!!!


image credit

Waving My Flaming Sword at the Football: Or How To Make Friends and Influence People

"So what sport is this I'm watching?" I asked my neighbour as we nursed our finely chilled sav blancs, nibbled on a parmesan risotto ball and peered through the expanse of glass to the floodlit field below. "There's no water so I know it can't be swimming."

Can I be forgiven for my complete lack of interest in Friday night's football? I mean, there's been such a lot of sport on this week the last thing I felt like doing was missing my beloved scrapbooking night for a corporate thingy in the President's Box watching The Power play Collingwood. This is the only way I will go to AAMI Stadium though. I'm happy to sit on the Terraces for the local matches and get on the ground for a kick between quarters but I find the plastic seats and distance from the ground at AAMI too remote and sterile. If I'm going there I want to be in a Box with refreshments on tap.

It was a star studded night: The Minster for Education came across and chatted to us. Himself had worked with her some years ago when she was Lord Mayor and he had been involved in organising the Adelaide Millennium Event; The President of Collingwood FC Eddie Maguire was swanning in and out in between recording game stats and chuckling to himself like a schoolboy; there were ex footballers, lawyers, Advisors to the Minister and even The Attorney General.

I told him how to bring up his kids.

Well, he did ask.

I don't think I asked him if he was a Man or a Mouse though, that was the North Adelaide Board Member and retired investment banker. His 17 year old son won't go to school and he is planning on taking him out of the expensive private school he's (not) attending.......at the end of the year.

"Are you ready to go?" asked Himself hopefully as I swung my flaming sword from side to side with gay abandon.
"What, already?" I queried....."who's winning?"
"Errrr the game has been over for some time dear. Hadn't you noticed that most people have left?"

I guess that's the problem with the whole drinking and double vision thing. You don't notice the room is emptying. Perhaps Himself will be less keen for me to accompany him next time and I can go to scrap booking instead?

In my defence I will say that the Attorney General wanted the address of this blog site to show his wife and mother-in-law. Fortunately I wasn't that inebriated.

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Update:

After dreaming this afternoon that No2 Son had come home, all smiles and apologising and making out it was nothing, I was awoken to the news that he is paying board to his ex-stepmother, does his own laundry and is helping around the house. Or maybe that's what he's meant to be doing. Either way I feel vaguely, nay definitely, irritated by this. Perhaps it's time to start creating a guest room after all.

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