The people you meet...on trains

You meet some seriously strange people on trains. These people are often carrying strange things, too. Case in point, the two people I met today on the Sandringham line. Person one was an Asian lady carrying a Very Large Plant (hereto known as VLP, not to be confused with VPL, which, had she been standing up, I might have also noticed.) Anyway so she's carrying this enormous (about 4 feet high) plant - succulent plant of some kind because it was not only big, but it was UGLY. You know the kind, with sveral long spindly bits which kinda 'explode' into various other small spindly bits at the top. This thing was enormous, and she was lovingly carrying it along with several other bags of shopping. The plant itself was kinda wrapped in a black rubbish bin liner (American translation = black garbage bag). It was quite amazing to see her sit down with all her stuff and then spend about five minutes gently rearranging the bag around the ugly plant so as not to damage any of it's ugly spindly bits. I desperately wanted to lean across the aisle, wrap the bag around the plant, and put the damn thing out of it's misery. It was truly a plant only a mother (a blind mother) could love. I couldn't help myself. After staring at this display of VLP love (and I am an unashamed starer, I don't even pretend to look like I'm not looking) I said, "Nice plant. " To which she smiled and said, "My engrish not ver' good." So much for that conversation. Even my Olympic talker self couldn't get very far with this...which is fine because of....

(S)talker Seatmate. (S)talker seatmate was sitting across from me, which in a Melbourne train means our knees were touching. Seems the people who made these trains with seats facing one another assumed everyone was 5'5'' and under. NOT SO, train makers, NOT SO. This leaves me either with knees squished to one side, or me and the other person doing the whole your knee/my knee/your knee/my knee sitting thing. I don't love mingling knees with strangers. Anyway, so my knee companion sits down, and smiles. A lot. He gives me the "I'd love to chat with you" smile - you know the one, the smile which says, "I'm feeling chipper and chatty so you must be too! Let's talk a lot and be best friends before we both get off this train and you breathe a sigh of relief at having left (s)talker seatmate behind!" The kind of person who will ignore all your body language which screams, "leave me alone!" Note, I had the number one LEAVE ME ALONE sign on: a big, fat, interesting-looking book on my lap. Open. Which I was actively reading, not just pretending to read. So (s)talker seatmate starts talking, and myself being a talker (although never a (s)talker seatmate, trains are for quiet time!), I couldn't really not talk back, now could I? Kinda like when you turn your computer on in the morning, it's almost a physical impossibility to avoid checking your email, even if your deadline for work is in the next 30 seconds. So I talk back, but in short leave-me-alone sentences. It didn't help. So I brought out nuber two LEAVE ME ALONE sign: I mention the DH (just in case this dude gets overly friendly). Doesn't help. Talker seatmate asks me about the weather, my football preferences, the rain, if my book is any good...you can see where this is going. This man puts my talking abilities to shame. I wouldn't have minded (much) except for two things:

1. (S)talker Seatmate had the scariest, ugliest, most feral looking teeth you've ever seen. Nice
man, horrid teeth. He smiled a lot. I should have given him some best friend seatmate advice on this one and said, "Mate, you're great to talk to but you make me cringe when you smile. Keep those choppers hidden!" I didn't, just buried myself in my book further and tried not to throw up. Imagine how HIS Mum must have felt when it came time to pulling out loose teeth...*shudder*

2. I was talking. A lot. I have an accent (well, I don't really, but these crazy Aussies think I do.) (S)talker Seatmate morphed into Stupid People Seatmate land by virtue of saying, "So, you grew up here in Melbourne, obviously..." It took me several seconds to recover from this , so I just stammered, "Ummm, no, I didn't." He didn't care, he just kept talking, and flashing those not-so-pearly blacks at me.

Travelling on trains can be a lot of fun - there is often great people watching, you're helping the environment (by not sitting in a car and belching out car fumes or whatever into the atmosphere), you can have quiet time to read or pick your nose or whatever....but sometimes, I must remember to steer clear of people holding VLP's and people who are (s)talker seatmates.

The people you meet

Have you ever met someone, and somewhere in the back of your mind thought, "I don't know why it's signficant that I'm meeting this person, but I know this person will play some part in my life." This happens to me every few months - I'll meet someone at work, or school, or via my kids...and I'll just kinda know that this person will have a significant impact on me. Sometimes the impact is not really known until much later. For example - I first got into the whole pastry thing when I did an "Intro to Buttercream" night class for fun. The people in the class were nice enough but one in particular seemed really cool - she had a job at a hip patisserie/bakery in a hip part of town and she gave me that wierd brain click thing. We didn't talk much in that class, we didn't stay in contact at all, she really was nothing to me then other than a random lady who gave me a brain click. Two years later that person became my boss and I now count her as one of my very good friends (on this blog she is known as the sicilian). These sorts of things - people hunches, let's call them - happen to me often enough that I wonder if it's my own kind of superpower. Like in the 7th grade there was a exchange student from Perth - her Dad's company moved them to Los Angeles for the year. We were friends, she was nice, but it all ended when she and her family went back to Perth - in the 7th grade long term friendships across the globe were not the done thing. I remember thinking, "Where the HECK is Perth?" Anyway, she is now a member of this group. She was, technically speaking, my first connection to Australia. Someday I will contact her again and tell her that (when she's not touring and selling a gajillion albums that is). She, at the time, was not a brain click person but in retrospect she must have been - a retrospective people hunch. I'm not talking about the people you lose contact with and then think about once in a while, and then you google their name, and then you either forget again about them or email them madly for 3 weeks and then not again until the next time you decide to google them. I'm talking about the people, who, for reasons which cannot be explained, have a real, significant impact on your life and the choices you make. Or people who, merely by virtue of meeting them, will change or at least influence the decisions you make in the future. I have yet to be wrong about my people hunches - maybe some would say I am just very intuitive - but it's interesting, isn't it? I never tell these people that they are my brain click (because they would look at me very strangely, and rightly so) - it's just kinda my secret knowledge about them - so when the whole hunch comes full circle and that thing happens which was attatched to them happens - I secretly, inwardly smile and think, "A-HA! Right again!"

*happy sigh* I love people hunches.

Age is relative

I think I've posted about this topic before - at least in relation to DH - but I think it's worth discussing again. Today I met someone who is 29. Her boyfriend (who moved all the way across the globe to be with her) is 21. Yes, HE is 8 years younger than she is. When she told me about this, she was all embarassed about it - as though it's something to be ashamed of. It's not like I would point and shout, "Cradle Robber!" at her. Sheesh. People take too much notice of the whole 'age difference' thing. In my experience (and the experience of others, since everyone I know feels the need to get my approval if their love interest age difference is greater than 3 years) - age is so relative to the individuals. I've met many a person my own age who is significantly more or less mature than I am. I wonder how much of it has to do with how we are raised, how much of it is gender-based, how much of it is society/culture based. Take, for example, your average 19 year old in a major metropolitan city (Note: I make no apology for broad, sweeping generalisations here.) . In the US, chances are that the 19 year old spent their high school years driving themselves to parties, holding down a part time job and applying to college. At 18, they probably left home to go to a college far away (as in, a plane ride away), took control of their finances (at least in some part), had a job, etc. The average 19 year old Australian child probably didn't have a part-time high school job, definetly didn't drive themselves anywhere (driving age is 18), and the whole college apps thing is done totally differently here (and far easier to do!). At 18 they probably went to university....a tram ride away from home. They probably still don't drive, probably have their parent's names on their mobile phone bill, and will live at home until they graduate. I'm not saying one way is better than the other - but if you were to introduce those 19 year olds to one another, I think you would find one is more mature (more independant?) than the other. If one of those 19 year olds were male, that brings another dimension to it. If they were an only child, if they come from a well-off family, if they are religious - so many factors combined to determine if a person is mature, average, or immature for their age.

For my Master's degree I wrote a thesis arguing that teenagers should be given the right to choose their treatment couse (including a choice to NOT undertake treatment) for life threatening illnesses. In my opinion at that time, teenagers should be given the right to choose for themselves even if their choice differs with that of their parents. I did also argue, however, that this could only happen where the adolescent showed a maturity and understanding of the situation. My Mom read that paper and assured me that once I had kids, my opinion on this topic would change. Well, now I've got kids and my opinion hasn't really changed all that much. It's just that now I would like to think DH & I would have a nuturing, open relationship with our kids so that our decision about treatment would be a mutually acceptable one. I just can't accept that 'legal age' means you are suddenly mature enough to handle things - driving, drinking, whatever. I have no solution as to how one decides what legal age should be, and I understand the need for a formal number to be attached to these rules. Age is such a strange notion to me - it's not like you wake up on the morning of your 18th birthday suddenly mature enough to handle alcohol. In our house we have a saying (which works in DH's favour) - 'You're only as old as the people you feel" ....and I truly believe it kinda is like that. For me, in any case, how I feel (and how I act) can often be day and company dependant. In the company of my uni friends, I often act and dress less mature than I would in, say, the company of my work colleagues.

So, how relevant is one's age? How significant a part should it play in any part of our lives - especially personal lives? Is the person dating someone much younger than her simply "cradle robbing"?

And for what it's worth, today I feel old. Somewhere around 43.

My life is one very long story

Yesterday I went to visit a friend with these gorgeous 8 month old twins. What was supposed to be a 'flying visit' ended up in three hours of chat fuelled by Arnott's Mint Slice biscuits and of course fun, conversation. Several of the topics we chatted about could have been blog entries...but I'm saving those for a day when I've run out of stuff to crap on about (yeah, like that will happen!). ANYHOOOOO, the thing that struck me about this conversation was how many 'stories' I have. She would say something innocuous like "baby bottle" and that would leave me with an index of funny stories about baby bottles (in my head, not out loud), from which I would often choose one to share. She'd laugh (of course, because I'm damn funny), the conversation would continue, she'd say something...and whammo, into my head leaps another index of stories about whatever phrase she has just uttered. Is my life just one long funny story? Is there some sort of quota of how many funny things happen to a person? If there is then I definetly have had more than my fair share - nearly everything which happens to me is story-worthy. People who know me in real life know that I often say (out loud), "I've got the best/funniest/most ridiculous story about that!" I then proceed to rabbit on for long periods of time. Maybe my stories aren't funny at all, maybe I'm just completely self-centered and therefore I think my stories are funny, but really they're not. Maybe those people laugh at the end of my stories just to be polite. Maybe I like the sound of my voice? Lately several people have commented about how I talk a lot. It's true, I do talk a lot. It's not that I find silence uncomfortable, it's just that I see no point in being quiet if I have something to say, which 99% of the time I DO. If I don't have an opinion to share, then, you guessed it, I have yet another of my myriad of funny stories...and yes, sometimes my mouth hurts after talking so much. It's not unheard of for DH to say, "Can you stop talking now?" especially when it's late at night, he's keen for some action, and my mouth is going 1,000 miles an hour. This post, as rambling as it is, is an example of how much I talk. I could just keep typing and typing and typing, and then mid-type I'd remember something funny which happened to me, and I'd have to share it with all of you, which would lead to more typing....you get the idea.

Speaking of funny stories (!!!) - you know the cheese sandwich? I found it. It was on top of a tissue box (Kleenex with Aloe!), on top of the coffee table, in the middle of the lounge room. I didn't notice it there (even though I walked past it several times that night and the next day) because it was sitting perfectly on top of the (square) box - and the bread and the box are not a dissimilar colour (see above, sandwich coloured kleenex box), and the box was neatly in the corner of the table with some other stuff... and it takes a whole paragraph just to tell you people I found a damn cheese sandwich. Is anyone out there listening?!?! Arrgghhhh....

Parenting for Dummies

I used to say that I wished the kids had come with an almanac - a waterproof one which swam around in their placentas, and when you gave birth, whoosh, out it came. Now the rules about this almanac were that you were only allowed to use it in moments of sheer desperation - moments when the usual tricks weren't working, the bribes are tossed aside by the bribee, the calls to helpful people have left you with nothin', and frankly you have literally NO IDEA what to do next. The Almanac for the "What the hell do we do now?" moments that every parent has (usually in the wee hours of the morning). Then you open the Almanac specific to your kid, specific to the day, you find the answer of what the hell is wrong with the kid, and (here's the best part) you also find out how to fix it! Ahhhh! Now I see! You've been crying hysterically, wailing to beat the band and kicking me madly because teddy's smile is 1/8th of a millimeter more crooked than it was three weeks ago! NOW I get it, I just have to hold him 1/8th of a millimeter in the other direction and you'll stop that incessant screaming! *phew* Saved by the Almanac! So we all know such a thing doesn't exist - and if it did, we'd all break the "only in desperation" rule anyway. I've since decided that it's the children who need the "for dummies" book, and they need it in relation to being parented - a book which teaches them some of the essential truths of childhood. Here are a few entries in that book:

• "Get out of here, I need to poo!" literally means Mum (or Dad) wants you to skedaddle, pronto. We DON'T want you to stand there and tell us every type of dinosaur including the 4 you just made up and what they like to eat best. It means, kid, BEAT IT.
  
• "What part of, I NEED TO POO are you not getting?" means, if you don't get the heck out of here on the order of right this very second, you're going to find out what a very angry Mumosaurus looks like. (Note: It's very hard to be angry using words like poo, but the other word would not be considered positive parenting by example...)
• Tired Mum has just stepped on a lego in bare feet for the third time today, the laundry has flooded, there is someone at the door, and your sister has a case of head lice which she announces loudly to everyone she meets. Now is NOT the time to say, "Mum, can I have a bowl of cereal? And can you only use the Pooh Bear bowl? With a green spoon? And only use the biodynamic Vitamin D enriched milk. Thanks." Word of advice, kid: Don't even ask. Just get it yourself (and try not to spill) or wait a day or two. Because if you say that while the above is happening, you WILL get your head bitten off.
• Mum or Dad smashing their toe on furniture and being in utter abject pain is not a good time to start laughing hysterically.
• Whatever it is you desperately need, want, or are just plain ol' being obnoxious about (food, drinks, favourite toys, small parts from toys you haven't played with in six months, blankies with holes in them, t-shirts that haven't fit for several weeks, essential scraps of paper from pre-school) we are guaranteed NOT to find in exactly the moment you need it. Get over it. We will only find it several hours/days/weeks later when frankly, you could care less about this previously 'life or death' item.
  
• Shrill screaming is only allowed in instances where it is warranted, e.g. if your life or your siblings' lives are in immediate danger. It is not allowed in any other circumstances, ever. Shrill screaming is not allowed if you are merely annoyed over the unfairness of life, someone touching you or your stuff, or you think I can't hear you (because I CAN, I'm just ignoring you), or because you like the sound of your loud, high pitched voice. Fact remains, kid, I can scream louder than you can, but I WON'T because I follow the rules about when it is allowed. You should too.
  
• "Mummy and Daddy are napping, now go away" is not an invitation to open the door and comment on why we are naked in the wintertime, and tell us that we really should be wearing warm jammies otherwise we will 'freeze to death in the night.' Given this is one of the only times we're 'napping', frankly, we don't give a shit if we get frostbite ON OUR you-know-wheres. Now go away.
  
• World Wars were not started over which DVD the world leaders wanted to watch. Why are you trying to start one that way?
  
• You had better realise that your whole life, there will always, always, always be someone touching your stuff. Just ask me about the people who keep stealing my knives at work. It sucks, but I can't complain to my boss that "so-and-so is TOUCHING MY STUFF!" You will never be able to complain about this and have anything meaningful done about it, so why bother doing it now? Learn to hide your stuff better.

I'm sure there are more lessons I could be putting in my "Childhood for Dummies" book. Imagine if they had one of these, how much easier this whole parenting gig would be. It would also be much quieter...but potentially much less interesting. Entries for the next edition welcome!

Single Parenting Sucks (Already)

So DH is out of town for a few weeks - as in, so far out of town he's on the other side of the globe. He's only been gone about nine hours and already I am sorely missing his presence. I've come to the conclusion that I've got to get the kids bathed, fed, dressed, entertained so that they don't kill one another, clean up those little floor-to-toe direct contact missiles known as toys in the dark, look after this house and the cars and all sorts of sundry household crap - all by myself. Thing is, I rely on DH to do so many different things - he is quite possibly, most helpful Dad in the world (which isn't to say he is perfect, it just means he's a damn decent human being.) For these weeks it's just me - the royal we of me, myself and I - against three five year old hellians. Now these kids are a lot of things - endearing, annoying, hungry, charming, exhausting, ridiculously illogical, funny, irritating, demanding (to name a few) - but they are, at least, not obnoxious. This means I will survive, right? So I was thinking I was going to do just fine without DH until two things happened. The first was the tooth incident. He is a very fine tooth-getter-outterer. I am not. I am a "If I try to push that tooth out I will spew" getter-outerer.The second thing that happened (and frankly, the straw that broke the proverbial) is that I lost my cheese sandwich. DH is also a very good cheese sandwich finderer.I'd gotten the kids dinner done and even consumed by them (in my defense, it was both filling and vaguely nutritious). I'd gotten them to bed, cleaned up the dishes, decorated two cakes, had a long telephone chat...etc etc before I realised I hadn't actually organised my own dinner. So at 10:30 at night I found myself making the ultimate comfort sandwich: imported expensive mayo and a slice of cheese on soft multigrain bread. Bliss! I then wandered around the house with it, nibbling as I went. I was looking for something to do, someone to talk to, some menial task which needed my attention, something which would distract me from the fact that I was all alone. It worked. I got distracted. I put my sandwich down. Then, of course, whatever the distraction was didn't last (and I can't remember what it was, because that was about 8 distractions ago). My stomach was sending my brain "I will starve" messages in an urgent sort of way. I went to get my sandwich, and it was GONE. Seriously. I can't find it. I've searched all the rooms and places I've been in, I went to the scene of the original distraction crime. My sandwich, quite simply, is not to be found. It's like it got sucked into a vortex, or squirelled away by some small animal. I can't find it. I need DH to come back and FIND my cheese sandwich. Otherwise it will look like the one above - ten years old, in a wierd shape, surrounded by cotton wool and with the Virgin Mary's face toasted into it. Although, being a Jewish household, it'll be a picture of Moses instead:
This post is just to say that the old chestnut is true: You don't know how much you need something until it's gone. In this case, I sorely miss DH's ability to be a brilliant Dad and other-person-in-the-house, and I really, really miss his ability to find cheese sandwiches. Stay tuned as I try to survive the next few weeks on my own with the "squids." This is the longest we've been without most-helpful-DH-in-the-universe. If he were here right now, he'd not only have found my sandwich, but he would have cleaned the dinner dishes (because, after all, I'm no good at it), made me a cup of tea, told me I'm gorgeous...wait a minute. Either this man is the world's most amazing DH, or he's trying to get some, ahem, "personal attention." Either way you've got to admire someone who thinks his wife (all demanding, annoying, messy haired 6 feet of her) is gorgeous even when she is demanding, annoying, and messy haired. But I digress. (Ohh, I've always wanted to say that!) I still have 17 days, 21 hours, 54 minutes and 51 seconds in which to a) survive the kids without any need for drugs and b) find my damn cheese sandwich. Otherwise it's a real waste of a schmear of this mayonnaise:

Mayonnaise, which, while expensive and sometimes hard to find in Australia, is SOOO worth it. Australian mayonnaise is just scary! But I'll bitch about wierd Australian foods in another post. In the meantime, if you have any single parenting advice, or any good ideas about just where the @#$%&! my sandwich might be (and no, I didn't eat it, I swear!), please feel free to leave a comment. Or just pray for me, whichever works for you.

...and another skill I lack

Pulling teeth. DD#1 has a very loose tooth which needs to be pulled out - because since it's just kinda hanging there, it's hurting her and annoying her and basically a cause for much whining and carrying on. I need to just push it out. I really do. But I can't. The idea of doing that not only gives me the goose bumps, but it quite literally makes me want to hurl. I tried to do it a few minutes ago and because I'm so freakin' stressed out over it all, I couldn't do it. All I did was succeed in upsetting her further and making myself nauseous. Now I want to go and throw up - literally - and it's going to take a bit of time before I return to normal. Ick.

RAS Recipe of the Week

Don't be put off by the fact that these biscuits are made in a food processor - when was the last time you dragged that thing out of the dark depths of your cupboards? This recipe is a great excuse to give it an airing. I originally got this recipe from the Super Food Ideas magazine - a great place to get all sorts of good sharing recipes! Anyway, do a winter good deed and bake these for someone - then sit and eat them together with a glass of milk. Yummmmo!!

Spiced Honey Biscuits
Yield: 40
2 cups self raising flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
1 Tablespoon mixed spice
2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 cup caster sugar
125g cold butter, cubed
1/2 cup honey
1 cup demerara sugar

Preheat oven to 200C. Line 3 baking trays with baking paper. Warm the honey in a small pot over a low flame, just to heat warm and make runny. Meanwhile, sift flour, bicarb mixed spice and ginger into the food processor. Process for 30 seconds. Add cater sugar and pulse for 20 seconds. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles bread crumbs. With food processor running, pour warm honey down the tube and process until a soft dough forms. Place demerara sugar in a bowl. Roll biscuit dough into walnut sized balls and roll in demerara sugar to coat. Place on lined trays, leaving room for spreading. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until biscuits are golden and tops are cracked. Stand on trays for 10 minutes and then cool on a wire rack.

Life Skills I Lack

There are a number of things I am pretty good at. Being a pastry chef, writing great letters (these days, emails), parenting (well, they're not on the therapist's couch yet), cooking in general, changing tires (as I recently discovered!), laughing, telling jokes, being organised, writing blog entries (ha!)....anyway, lots of stuff I can do and do well. However life has recently reminded me that there are a number of things which I am totally, utterly, completely useless at. Here is a small selection of things which I really suck at doing:

• Sewing. I attempted to sew a large hole in DD#1's most favourite and well abused denim skirt. Ummmm....well, it's hanging together on a hope and a prayer (and lots of crooked, too wide, very messy and not done right stitches.) Seriously, I will be amazed if it lasts the day.
• Ironing. Given my career, there is a reasonable amount of ironing to do. Thank god it's just squares or rectangles, because ironing anything in another shape is just not possible. I iron more wrinkles *in* than I take out, and even that takes in excess of 45 minutes. Per shirt.
  
• Lying. I can do it when it's not important, like little white likes about 'I LOVE this hideous and inappropriate gift! Thank you SO much!" but when someone asks my opinion about something, well...I can't hide it. I open my mouth and say what I am thinking. Rather often, this gets me in trouble. It's like I either never had a brain filter, or someone turned it off. I also can't lie on paper - like resumes. If I lied on my resume, my non-filtered mouth would probably give it away in the first three seconds of the interview.
  
• Making small talk while holding a drink in one hand. This is akin to slow torture for me. The only salvation is the waitress with the canapes, who frankly I assault every time she walks past so I have an excuse (full mouth) not to make more pointless, uncomfortable conversation.
• "Forgetting" to eat. Who are these people? The ones who get so busy they forget to eat? This has never happened to me. I could be writing the Great American Novel (in Braille), knitting a jumper with my feet, keeping 10 plates spinning on poles, reciting The Odyssey in French backwards all at the same time and I would STILL not forget to eat.
• Washing Dishes - or at least, DH says I am bad at this. I just say, he thinks I'm bad at it, so he does it himself. Perfect plan in my book! Somehow when he's not around the dishes get washed just fine...hmmm...
• Pretend to like people. You know how you meet someone, and you either instantly click with them or you don't? Well if I mean someone who falls into the "no click" category, I have a hard time hiding that. I suppose I wear my heart on my sleeve in that way - it's obvious how I feel about someone pretty much from minute one. I take the things people say personally. I can't fake a smile or affection. My people skills are very black and white.
  

Hmmm. There are probably other things I'm bad at (after all, I freely admit I am the furthest thing from perfect there is), but these are ones I've encountered recently.

Gainfully Unemployed

If the trend continues, I'm going to be spoiled for choice. Here are the stats, in a MasterCard sort of way:

Interviews: 5 (1 next week)
Offers for trials: 2
Will call back to confirm trials: 2
Job offers rejected by moi: 1
Enjoyment over having some free time to myself: Priceless.

....and in the past 2.5 days of unemployment I've been busier than ever. I even managed to get a hair cut (for the first time in 7 months.) I could get used to this!

I hate stupid people

My hatred of stupid people started long, long, long before the trio were born. Actually I'd say that my hatred of stupid people started way back when I realised that not only was I was not one of them,but I am in fact pretty damn clever (around age two). This makes me, among other things, more able to spot the stupids. It also means I am infinitely more annoyed by them, and less skilled at hiding my annoyance. Of course just because one is clever doesn't mean one cannot do stupid things, but these are isolated incidents which should be considered mere aberrations rather than declarations of stupidity. (Wow that sentence had a lot of big words, didn't it? Proof I am not a stupid person!) Anyway once the trio were born, it seems that there was a release of extra stupid people in the world, and all of these people made stupid comments by, around, or about the trio. Here are a few examples (and yes, I really did hear all of these, some very often!):

• "Are they identical?" (Ummm, no, he has a penis and they don't.)
• "Are they natural?" (Ummm, no, they are made with MSG.)
• "If I were you I would want to kill myself." (Go right ahead, one less stupid person in the world suits me just fine.)
• "Gee, you have your hands full!" (No shit, Sherlock)
• "Do they all share a car seat?" (Yes, we stack them so they fit in the two-seater Porsche.)
• "How old are your kids?" "They're 5." "All of them?" "Yes, all of them." "WHY?" "Ummm, because they were all born on the same day." Stupid lady: "Oh" (she walked away still looking very confused)
• "I feel sorry for you" (Here's a quarter, go call someone who cares what you think.)
• "Do they all eat the same thing?" (No, I've got one on a diet of worms and one on a starvation diet - we're conducting experiments!)
• "I didn't feed her lunch." This was from a creche teacher who did not feed one girl because the other had said she was not hungry. (Go figure, two humans, one decides if the other is hungry?!)
• (screaming) "Look! It's the triplet lady!" (Yes, and I need you to announce that each and every time I walk into a room, because I have no other identity.)
  
• "Why is he/she bigger?" (That would be because they are separate people who do not eat, shit, or grow at the same rate.)

The world is full of these people who say and ask totally stupid things. This rule of hating stupid people does not only apply to the ones who comment on the trio, it applies to stupid people in general. There are so many of them out there! Unfortunately a large majority of them seem to be employed in customer service roles (and one of these days I'll post about my 9 months spent temping!). Like the person who can't give you the info you need because you haven't got an account number, but the whole reason you called was to get the account number. Share with me, will you? I'd like to hear about some fantastically stupid people.

At the moment I'm in love with this TV show, "Girls of the Playboy Mansion." Okay, you're thinking, el primo example of stupid people. On the surface of it they're blond bimbos with big boobies and that's all there is too it. I totally disagree. These women get cars, money, chefs at their disposal, clothes, a gorgeous house, fame, and probably lots of other cool perks like meeting famous people and basically living in total luxury. For doing what? NOTHING. That's not stupidity, my friends, that's pure genius.

What a show off!

Here is some cool stuff I've made recently:Springtime wedding cake

Traditional wedding cake

An order for the 'most cheesy' wedding cake - ugh! Peach and blue lace!

Chocolate Box

Every once in a while I need to remember to share this stuff with you guys, otherwise you'll start to think I made up that "damn fine pastry chef" title!

Fate is a fabulous thing

Religiously speaking, my beliefs are a little all over the place. I'm not entirely sure if I believe in god or not, I don't know if aliens are out there, I can't explain crop circles or Stonehenge and I don't know if I believe in fate. At the same time, so many wierd 'coincidences' happen in my life (and the lives of others) that it's a bit hard NOT to believe in fate, the predestination of things happening for some higher reason. Like the guy in the cartoon stepping away *just* as the piano falls from the 45th floor, or people not getting on THAT flight, or runaway brides, or...any path taken which at first seems somehow not right. Fate or not, I think that things - both good and bad - happen for reasons which in the moment are not entirely easily explained. Take, for example, the trio. Circumstance (and a total lack of fertility) dictated that we had to go the IVF route to conceive them. At the time - it was a tragedy, a travesty, and other t---y words. It was, at the time, the worst thing in the world. Luckily for us, it ended well, with trio in tow. In retrospect, it was the BEST thing in the world. Not only did it give us the trio, but it meant we had our children early in our relationship, leaving DH & I free to roam the universe while he and I are both relatively spritely. Had we not had the experience of IVF, we might not have had children, might only have had a singleton, or might have been decidedly old and grey before having them - leaving DH not as capable of running around with them, or me not able to pursue my sweet career. See what I mean? IVF = totally sucky, but really IVF = totally lucky.

Is this making sense? Something awful happens, and it totally, totally sucks, but hindsight (being 20/20 and all) shows you that it was worth that horrible thing happening because of the person you will become or the lessons it's taught or the opportunites you will get as a result. So like my dream job thing ending - you know, fact is it really, really, really sucks. However - and here's that hindsight - I think it's taught me a lot, and also thrown up other opportunities. At the end of the day it's NOT the end of the world, even if in the moment it kinda felt like it was. This rule applies to the big stuff as well as the little stuff - only it's much harder for the big stuff. Anyway here's my 5 cents worth of advice: Next time something totally shitty happens in your life, take a moment to think to yourself: ya know, in a few days or weeks or months, I'm going to realise that this doesn't suck so bad. emzee said so, so it must be true.

Definition of Health Food

The trio went to a birthday party yesterday, complete with requisite piles of sugar and fat laden junk food. Don't get me wrong, it's a party, hence the party food. I don't really have any issues with this (other than my kids always want a real meal afterwards...). Anyway so I see this kid walk by with a plate full of stuff. Not unusual. I then see his Mom, following him, with a tray of fairy bread, and she says in a stern Mommy voice, "You may NOT eat any of that until you've eaten something healthy!" In what part of theuniverse is fairy bread considered a health food?! Sometimes, you just have to laugh...

For you Americans: Fairy bread is cheap white bread, slathered with butter and then covered in sprinkles (see above).