The Revenge of Sponge-Woman (a post dental tale)

Having just returned from another fun-filled visit to the dentist and, with a numbness that rivals catalepsy spread across my entire face, I now understand how people who have Botox injections must feel.

But why would anyone voluntarily paralyse their face? I wonder. I am living proof that, from a cosmetic improvement perspective anyway, it doesn’t work; for I am certainly no prettier for the experience. In fact, with not much capacity for animated expression at all, it’s quite a grim little reflection that greets me in the mirror as I inspect the damage.

So bland is my expression that Number One Son (who has apparently been taking full advantage of the ‘Unlimited Home Phone To Mate’s Mobile’ option in my absence) appears confused as I motion for him to hang up the phone.

“What?” he splutters, feigning innocence.

I try a scowl. Nothing. I try a grimace. Still nothing.

“Grof-de-fern” I mumble. Amazingly he seems to understand. He bids his buddy farewell and hangs up the phone as requested.

“What’s your problem?” he asks, peering bewilderedly at my expressionless face.

I act out a (somewhat embellished) dentist-drilling mime. I use a pretend jackhammer for the charade. Number One seems to get my point.

“Oooh, filling, huh?” he grins sadistically, in the way that people do when they don’t have a dentist appointment looming. “Aw, shucks. It’s too bad you won’t be able to eat those chocolates in the fridge, isn’t it?”

He realises by my haughty grunt that he has probably gone a bit far, and makes a hasty retreat.

It is true that I am not a happy camper. My head seems like a giant, lifeless kitchen sponge and, to make matters worse, I am hungry.

Having not eaten for several hours (which is pretty much hitherto unheard of by my digestive system) I head for the kitchen in search of something soft – yet tasty – to sate my appetite.

I decide on a vegemite sandwich of soft white bread. I cut it up into small pieces so I can feed it gently between the numb lumps that are currently posing as my lips.

Chewing proves to be difficult because the inside of my mouth resembles an alien planet full of strange, out-of-whack machinery. But, eventually I manage to suck the bread into submission and the swallowing mechanism (which thankfully seems to work on “auto”) pushes it down.

“Ahh!” I can almost hear the fat cells give a little sigh of relief as the first morsel slides past my comatose tonsils and into cellulose depositing territory. No doubt, having been on ‘famine alert’ for the past two hours, the little chaps are rushing about multiplying feverishly to ensure that this situation never arises again. (You’ve truly got to admire the tenacity of fat cells, and believe me, currently on my body, there are plenty of opportunities to admire them!)

After the sandwich and a warm cup of coffee (slurped half into my mouth, but mostly down my front) I am beginning to feel almost human again, and by the time Number One returns I am even feeling a little friendlier. I try a little smile.

“What?” he cries defensively (suggesting that the smile muscles are still a little haywire).

“N’fn,” I grunt, conceding that my post-dental emotions will probably remain a mystery to everyone else for at least another hour or two.

Number One grins and crunches a chocolate loudly in his mouth.

I smirk (inwardly, of course) silently vowing that, as soon as my mouth starts to work again, I will ring the dentist and book Number One in for a check-up.

That'll have him smiling on the other side of his face! He he!

A Stone's Throw from Paris

We all know people who seem to attract inordinate amounts of terribly bad luck. The poor things seem to just have “wound me!” tattooed on their unfortunate foreheads.

Then there are others, like me apparently, who seem inclined to woo the low level, garden-variety kinds of bad luck. Nothing to get one’s face plastered across the Sunday papers, but enough to be annoying.

Like the time at Montmartre in Paris. Well, admittedly, being in Paris in the first place was actually pretty GOOD luck, so I probably shouldn’t be whingeing … but anyway, there I was.

Having ridden the famous Funicular up Montmartre ‘hill’, viewed the beautiful Basilica of the Sacre Coeur and dined in the history-drenched cobbled Artist’s Quarter, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. That was until, waiting innocently at the bottom of the hill with our tour group, I took a sudden sharp whack to the head.

Once I realized I hadn’t been fatally wounded (which was fairly obvious because I was still standing up and breathing), I started scanning the ground to see what had hit me. But it was dark so I then directed my efforts to trying to work out who the flinger of the projectile may have been; for clearly whatever had just hit me had not flown through the air by itself (unless it was a stone-like bird with very bad eye-sight). I was looking for a smug attitude; a face that had that “I’ve just sconed that dippy Aussie tourist with a rock” look written all over it but, alas, in a city full of smug looking tourists it was difficult to spot.

My spouse could barely hide his astonishment as I hopped around whimpering and clutching my head.

“What the hell happened?” he demanded, clearly bemused that I, alone could have been harmed when no-one else appeared to have been similarly stricken. When I explained my dilemma he just rolled his eyes.

“Jeez!” he said, “You must be the only person I know who can get injured by just standing still.”

Which I know may sound a little callous but, when you consider he had only the day before witnessed me plummet like a limbless sack of spuds to the floor of the bus for no apparent reason, you can perhaps see why he was a little less than concerned by my latest catastrophe.

Fortunately, as evidence, I did have a speck of blood and a slight ‘egg’ on my head where I had been hit. Even the spouse began to get intrigued and we speculated about who would be throwing things and why.

“Did you look at anyone strangely?” he asked. “Did you see anyone behaving suspiciously?”

I shook my head.

“I did wonder if it was some kind of nut falling out of that tree,” I said pointing above me. But then I realized that it would have to have been a nut falling at a rather peculiar trajectory to have hit me at a 45 degree angle. And a rather forcefully falling nut at that. While I’m sure many things in Paris are avante garde, artistic and unique, I am similarly sure that Parisian nuts falling from trees would still be required to adhere to the regular laws of gravity as per nuts falling in, say, Cobram, Australia. So the tree was off the hook.

“What happened?” cried my fellow bus travelers when they saw me nursing my wounded head.

“Someone threw something at her,” volunteered the spouse casually, seeming less surprised by the minute that some random stranger might take a sinister delight in clomping his wife with a lump of God Knows What at the bottom of a hill in Paris. Like it happens every day!

“I wonder if they were aiming at you, or whether you just got in the way?” speculated someone.

And that, my friends, is something we will never know. But I would like to think that they were actually aiming at the spouse.

After all, he was the dill who’d just paid 18 Euro ($31.56 AU) for a single pint of beer on Montmartre!

And he thought I was silly!

Best In Show

Having recently become a bit of a “Dog Fancier” I, and the object of my canine affection, Scruffy the Mini Schnauzer pup, went for a peek at a dog show that was held here a few weeks back.

I had actually forgotten the show was on, until halfway through our morning walk and so (resplendent in daggy track pants and bed-hair) decided on a little walkies diversion so that Scruffy and I could see how the ‘other half’ (i.e. dogs with manners and cute hair styles) live.

We were very impressed too. Fluffy Pomeranians and elegant Afghans, sleek Rottweilers and cute Malteses, adorable Shar Peis and handsome Dobermans all marching around the ring or patiently enduring another grooming -- or reclining, bored, in their shaded crates.

Their owners, mostly smartly-coiffed women, paraded with them in the ring. It struck me as a little odd that these ladies would wear business suits in a dog ring but, then again, I guess dog breeding is very serious business and they figure they must do whatever they can to improve the overall picture for the judges. Either that or they are living in a corporate 90’s timewarp.

Anyhow, Scruff and I innocently parked ourselves not far from the entrance to Show Ring 1 and settled down to watch proceedings. All was going well: Scruff was fascinated but well behaved. Then a couple of huge ‘blue’ dogs (I have no idea what breed they were; sort of a cross between a fat blue Labrador and a St Bernard) made their way to the Show Ring entrance, waiting for their turn. These dogs were twenty times the size of Scruff; big powerful, but gentle-looking dogs. One of them noticed Scruff and pulled towards him to say hello.

“Ruf!” squeaked little Scruff in delighted approval.

“Don’t you DARE!” shrieked Fat Blue Boy’s Prada-Coiffed Handler, glaring at Scruff indignantly as if he was about to leap upon her precious mutt and tear him limb from limb!

She must have noticed the surprised look on my face, because she suddenly forced a quick ‘smile’ before turning her attention back to Fat Boy. (Presumably this was some kind of apology for being a vicious puppy hater).

Anyhow, Scruff and I decided we’d had enough so we wandered off in search of a fellow Miniature Schnauzer fancier. We soon found a lady grooming her hairy-faced boy, and stopped for a chat.

“Are you going to do something about his ears?” she asked looking disapprovingly at Scruff.

“Why?” I asked, “What’s wrong with his ears?”

She advised me that Schnauzer ears are supposed to fold forward. Scruffy’s point up and outwards (kinda like the ‘Flying Nun’ — for those of you old enough to remember her). Her advice was to tape a five cent piece to each ear, then tape his ears to his head. God knows for how long! I was too taken aback to actually ask.

“I don’t intend to show him or anything,” I said -- probably irrelevantly, because clearly Flying Nun Boy was never going to be a serious contender.

She kindly went on to give me some advice on grooming and maintaining the Schnauzers, and informed me that her dogs are never allowed to get fully wet as it ‘softens’ the coat (apparently this is an undesirable outcome in Schnauzer Land).

“So they never get to have a swim?” I asked in disbelief.

“Never,” she confirmed.

“Phew, Scruff!” I said as we made a hasty exit from the strange world of dog showing. “I’ll bet you’re glad you’ve got ME as your Mum and not THAT lady!”

“My fur coat!” agreed Scruff as he steered me towards the river for a quick dip and a roll in the dirt. “My furrrr coat!”

The Weather Girl

We all like to know what the weather’s doing. And there are a variety of methods to decipher, describe, monitor and predict weather patterns and many dedicated weather boffins are out there risking life, limb and reputation just to bring us our 'Seasonal Climate Outlooks'.

But few of us everyday, meteorologically-challenged types ever wonder about what they actually do, these Meteogram junkies, or how the heck they come up with their predictions.

For example, who has ever heard of the 'MJO' (Madden-Julian Oscillation)? Apparently this is not some crazy Anglo-Greco dance, as I first suspected, but a periodic increase in rainfall which moves regularly across the tropics. Some guy (presumably in a tree-house somewhere in the Daintree Forest) checks satellite cloud loops and atmospheric pressure changes to predict bursts in monsoon activity during the wet season.

And you, at home, just go, “Ho hum, another wet week ahead”.

Well, that’s if you happen to live in the tropics.

Not around here though. We haven’t had a wet week for so long that the old saying; “Face like a Wet Week” had been changed to “Face like a Dry Winter”; that’s how bad it is! But I digress.

The real reason I wanted to write about all things meteorological this week, is that I may have accidentally uncovered a fool-proof method of predicting rain.

No, I haven’t been consulting the ‘Koppens Classification of Climates System’; nor have I been checking the ‘Rainfall Variability Index’ (although I do admit to having a peek at my Aneroid Barometer which has been pointing — somewhat optimistically, I would say — to RAIN for the past two years. I threw it out).

I haven’t even been consulting my aching sciatic nerve or arthritic tennis elbow and I certainly wasn’t listening to those cheeky ‘rain birds’ who have been squawking madly for weeks. I will admit the ants in the sugar bowl had me momentarily convinced but, like the promising clouds that have been gathering regularly for the past few months, I eventually ignored their teasing antics and went in search of a more reliable method of forecasting some long-desired precipitation.

And found it.

Via my house renovation.

Well, more specifically, the fitting of a new roof and its inherit necessity to remove the old roof, thus exposing the upper reaches of my abode to the heavens (and all that falls therefrom).

You guessed it. The one day of the millennia when I could really have used a bit of dry weather, and the skies open up!

Of course, I predicted this … with unwelcome accuracy.

And not only did it pour but, in an effort to check if the tarps were holding up, my intrepid spouse climbed up to check out the potential damage and went soaring from the slippery rooftop. He landed with a sickening thud, face down on the front lawn. (I did accurately predict this too, I might add, although, “I told you so’s” are not much appreciated by injured — although miraculously, alive — roof-skaters).

So from now on, dear reader, I will not be relying on weather men and their little formulas; their radars and isobars and satellites and gigabytes and frosty-bytes or whatever it is they claim gives them the forecasting edge.

Instead, I will check the local Council building permits and see whose doing a little roof-raising … and when. And if the renovators are as unlucky as us?

Well, we’ll all be jumping for joy ….. (while they get out the buckets!)

Why Dieting Doesn’t Work – The Morning Tea Factor

Being a true martyr to science I have fronted up to many a morning tea in search of clues to help solve the great mystery of how and where calories congregate (and why they always seem to end up on my hips).

I realise there could be a prize for scientific discovery in this for me, but unravelling this puzzle means more to me than mere public accolades. There are bigger things at stake here (i.e. fitting into my size 12 jeans again) and I intend to get to the ….um.…bottom of it.

Day after day I have selflessly gone in search of data to support my theory that calories are attracted to people who are dieting. This theory has arisen from the observation that slim people seem to be able to eat whatever they like without getting fat, whereas we dieters only have to look at a pastry or crème brulee and the calories seem to leap aboard.

Of course, like all reputable researchers, I feel compelled to offer supportive evidence for my hypothesis. So here’s how I believe it works. According to my clinical studies -- carried out courageously; with no concern for my own dangerous exposure to potential flab -- I have noted that slim people tend to stand some distance away from the morning tea table. When the hot food arrives, they swoop swiftly across the table; securing a sausage roll, a lump of mudcake and three chunks of cabana in one deft grab. They then scurry quickly away from the table, keeping their distance until the need to feast arises again.

Having witnessed this on many occasions I have finally figured out what they are up to. By slipping quickly away from the centre of feasting activity (i.e. the table) they seem to be evading the calories!

Meanwhile the dieters (weak from avoiding food for the entire morning) lean gratefully on the edge of the table, supporting their wobbly legs and light heads. They scan the contents of the table, taking care not to dwell on the party pies, cream sponge or iced donuts, then dutifully make a beeline for the carrot and celery sticks, low fat dip and cardboard crackers. They stuff the aforementioned into their salivating mouths and smile smugly, congratulating themselves on not succumbing to the lure of the forbidden fare.

But little do they know their efforts are all in vain.

For the calories they have been so carefully avoiding — having eagerly leapt skywards during the initial ‘slim-person swoop’ — now find themselves hovering mid-air in search of a suitable ‘host’.

As all the slim people have removed themselves quickly from the incubation area, only the dieters remain in the ‘zone’ — dangerously at risk of calorie infestation. The calories, being none too picky about where they land, deposit themselves on the slimmers, and bingo! There you have it; fat deposited!

Devastatingly simple, isn’t it? But at least with the benefit of such knowledge, we chronic would-be-slimmers can protect ourselves from such onslaughts.

In future I intend to stand with the slim people at morning tea and when they make their speedy dive for the hot/fattening food I will be amongst their number. I will grab the nearest cream puff and mini-quiche and dash furiously for the door in the hope that the calories will not be quick enough to catch me.

And if you ever see me looking slim and sylph-like, you will know that I finally managed to give ‘em the slip!

Fashionista (not!)

There have been a few clues throughout my lifetime that I may not be the most fashion-savvy of people.

The first sign was at the age of about twelve when, just beginning to ‘bud’ (as my Mum so delicately put it) I became the proud new owner of a lovely white “Fibs” bra.

Now, some of you will remember the Fibs bra. Very much like the ‘kiddy’ bras you see today, the Fibs was a stretch nylon bra with no clasps, hooks or metal bits. It went on over your head like a tee-shirt and had absolutely no uplifting properties at all. Not that this was an issue for me, as there was absolutely nothing to uplift anyway.

I delightedly wore my latest acquisition and proudly showed it off to my older, more bra-savvy friends. But I was most disappointed when they started giggling as they peered down the front of my school dress.

“What the hell is THAT!” they cried, falling about laughing.

“Whadya mean?” I said indignantly. “It’s a bra, stupid! It’s a Fibs. They’re the latest thing!”

“Not THAT!” they cried, “What’s the thing you’ve got under it?”

I peered down my dress to see what they were talking about.

“Oh, you mean my singlet” I said casually, blissfully unaware that I may very well have committed my first ever (known) fashion crime.

They laughed even harder.

“What?” I cried, bewilderedly. “What’s so funny?”

“Well, for a start you don’t wear stuff UNDER your bra, you ninny,” they informed me. “And secondly, who wears singlets anyway? Singlets are for little kids.”

I stood there in shock. No more singlets? Were they kidding? Was this the price I had to pay in order to cross the threshold to womanhood? Did my mother know this? (I doubted this, because I had seen her also wearing a singlet. Dad too). Clearly, I came from a long line of singlet-wearers and I knew it would be difficult to convince them that my kidneys could ever survive winter without singletty protection.

I considered my options.

“What if I put the singlet over the top of the bra?” I ventured, but was rewarded with a grim shaking of heads.

“It has to go,” the Pubescent Fashion Police prescribed.

And so it was that I learned my first ever fashion lesson the hard way. Only ridicule and ribbing can work so well.

I’d love to say it was an isolated incident but, many years later, after wearing a purple knitted skirt to work several times — and believing that I looked quite fab — I was implored by a good friend to take the ‘hideous’ thing off the moment I got home and burn it!

“I want it gone forever!” said my friend. “And I never want to speak of the purple ‘knee-rug’ again!”

Thankfully she didn’t peep down the front of my top.

God only knows what she would’ve said about the singlet!