ms crankypants

Diary notes from yesterday.

My family horse died this morning. She was about 36 and was a grand old thing — the last link between the childhood and my independent adult life so she’s left a big hole in my heart. Very sad.

Did probation review at the new job from hell with Lord Monkey Butt and got some things sorted out and extracted more money. Somewhat pleased and will complain less for the time being.

Came out of review and a headhunter had a left a message about an interesting role. Good but confusing.

Found out a staff member from my last job almost died in a drunken fall through a window and severed his carotid artery. Incredulous.

Mum rang again to say the mother of our dearest family friends passed away. Seriously, if there is one more death or near death I’ll not deal with it well.

A nutty but seemingly harmless client has been sending messages of admiration and puppy love. He came back when he was sober and sent a message saying I was a goddess. Secretly made my day.

Saw my doctor to ask why my toe joint x-ray has an additional blob that seems to be growing from the bone. Apparently the radiologist was supposed to give feedback and didn’t, apart from me overhearing her say, “Done, let’s get the next one in.” I have a spur that probably isn’t causing grief, and the impact of arthritis — she says avoid surgery at all costs and to try another cortisone shot. I’ll see the surgeon in a fortnight and he’ll no doubt recommend surgery. Fucked if I know what to do.

I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or sleep for a long time.

Crank-o-meter: why is there no alcohol in the house?

March 5th, 2010 | Tags: shittypants | Category: shittypants | Comments (15)

When I’m not trawling the web for baby elephant photos, I occasionally catch up with the news and the creative ways people find to hurt themselves.

The story below about a sensible, kindly old gent captured my attention.

90-year-old loses licence for speed, drink-driving

March 1, 2010

VICTORIA has a new oldest hoon - a 90-year-old man has lost his licence after drink-driving at more than 20 km/h over the speed limit.

Police detected the man driving along Thompsons Road, Lower Templestowe, on Saturday just after 8.30pm at a speed of 83 km/h in a 60 km/h zone. The Craigieburn man blew more than double the blood-alcohol limit, with a reading of .112.

He told police he had been out with his son for celebratory drinks. He received two fines for excessive speed and drink-driving and immediately lost his licence.

An 80-year-old driver who had previously claimed the title as the state’s oldest hoon was blasted last month by a magistrate after saying he had dozed off when speeding at 150 km/h for more than 20 kilometres.

Farmer and former Sunday school teacher Ron Bell had originally blamed his lead foot on being late for an appointment but later said he had temporarily fallen asleep at the wheel.

AAP

Source: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/90yearold-loses-licence-for-speed-drinkdriving-20100228-pb7l.html

I know police officers have seen everything and are hard to surprise after a few years of cleaning human debris, but wouldn’t you raise an eyebrow if you were on booze bus duty or driving the streets to attend a rowdy party when a nonagenarian fangs past at more than 20km/h over the speed limit? And is pissed as a newt to boot?

And the drunk, lead-footed old dickhead was celebrating something with his son, who it’s safe to assume is of retirement age – what the fuck was he thinking letting his dad drive home? Did father and son have a mature-age arm wrestle to fight over the car keys and the more senior idiot won?

Pensioners are given half-price taxi cards – use them! We the taxpayers would prefer to subsidise your nights on the shandies if you promise to stay off the roads.

Crank-o-meter: i worry for the future

March 1st, 2010 | Tags: general delusions | Category: general delusions | Comments (6)

I was going to write a serious piece about the sad necessity that zoos have increasingly greater responsibilities as cataloguers and maintainers of the world’s animal species, BUT I’M OBSESSED WITH THE BABY ELEPHANT AT MELBOURNE ZOO!

All photos sourced: Jason South, www.theage.com.au

I just want to scoop all 110+ kilograms of her up in my arms, steal her away into my (incredibly undersized for the task) car and then panic about what to feed my little wrinkly princess. Her mother, Dokkoon, would be upset at having her gorgeous cuddlemonster taken away, so I suppose I’d have to return with the family’s alpaca transporter and see if I can squeeze mamma elephant in the back and bring her home as well. The trees at my house wouldn’t keep them fed for long, but there’s a large horse paddock out the back that will serve for meals until I find elephant agistment. The peninsula stocks many kinds of exotic animals like camels, deer and the odd water buffalo or two so I’m sure there I’ll locate suitable facilities for elephants in this week’s local paper.

The water tanks are full and Dokkoon and Baby Dok will enjoy the elephant-sized pool and baby-safe play pool once I’ve, erm, had the paddock out the back excavated. I have a Swiss ball that’s collecting dust so the l’il one and I will play elephant soccer with it to her heart’s content.

I’m upset about the zoo’s competition to name Baby Dok after Thailand’s floral heritage. The options are Leelawadee (frangipani), Ma Li Wan (climbing jasmine), Su Ma Lee (osmanthus), Mali (jasmine) and Iyares (which apparently means both elephant and orchid). The buttheads at my work don’t agree with me calling her Baby Dok, and I say, “Come on, she’s a baby, her mother is Dokkoon, and it’s a rappin’ good elephant name.” I need another job where my co-workers are a little less critical and lot more enthusiastic about my excellent ideas. In the meantime, I’m plotting a day off work away from them and with my new saggy baggy elephant baby.

Crank-o-meter: come to your new mamma, Baby Dok

February 21st, 2010 | Tags: Add new tag, animals are fun | Category: animals are fun | Comments (11)

Now that even holding a mobile phone in your hand while driving is a sin, it’s become remarkably thrilling, especially when there’s such easy quarry to photograph while waiting at lights. This advertising sign was plastered on the van in front of me.

Crank-o-meter: your laying had better be good

February 13th, 2010 | Tags: crimes against language, general delusions | Category: crimes against language, general delusions | Comments (5)

Everyone outside Victoria picks on Melbourne’s weather with the same rabid assertiveness when debating other national obsessions like Tony Abbott’s choices of sports wear each week.

I love Melbourne’s weather. I love telling visitors to wear their bathers but bring an overcoat when they pack, I love not putting away the bulk of my winter clothes until late November (and never putting them all away just in case!) and I have an absurdly passionate relationship with the upside-down days when sweltering nights are hotter than the days that follow. All that wasted time trying to sleep in the heat when the cool change could have rolled in a few hours earlier – you bitchface, Mother Nature, but I still love you!

Sydney’s energy-sapping humidity sucks. I remember the week I moved there and was sporting perennially Shirley Temple-curled hair from the humidity, and the first rain I’d experienced dripped down the office windows. I yelled something along the lines of “EUREEEEEEKA, A COOL CHANGE!” and ran from my desk past surprised co-workers who were wondering why the new person had gone troppo. I shot down to ground level, burst out of the building and almost cried in public when I discovered the air-temperature rain just made the heat more wet and soul draining. I took my sopping self (now with new and improved double frizzy curls) back to the office and the sympathy of other homesick Melburnians who got the whole cool change thing. The locals thought I was a fucking idiot with impulse control issues.

Brisbane’s morning heat in summer is horrid. I’ve walked from hotels no more than 200 metres to offices and dripped sheets of sweat, which wasn’t a good look when trying to impress groups of impressionable young folk. The attempts I made to sound convincing as a trainer were belied by my crumpled clothes and sweaty pink face that made me look more like a late-night TV used car salesperson. The balmy climate was more pleasing though at night when I got lost going for walks and spent hours trying to work out how to get out of the big park I’d accidentally discovered. The park was probably a relaxing, pretty place during the day but I scanned the papers to make sure Brisbane wasn’t overrun by warm weather-loving, park-dwelling serial killers at night.

Perth is nicely hot and the Freo doctor is a marvel of refreshment but does it ever rain there? I receive e-mails from a friend high in Perth’s tallest building complaining when a cloud passes by but he has never mentioned the trauma of water falling from the sky.

I’ve never been to Darwin but the locals seem addicted to air conditioners and copious amounts of beer six months of the year so I already know it’s not the city for me. Now that I can knit above the level of piss-poor amateur, I think I’d like Hobart very much because I can wear my scarf and beanie experiments more often. I’ve never been to Adelaide but the summer seems similar to Melbourne’s except for the lack of psychotic cool changes so it might be a nice place to admire the weather, and Canberra, well, it seems too hot in summer and too frosty in winter but kind of unexciting the rest of the time. Landing at Canberra airport once on a frosty morning made me vow never to fly near the place between April and October.

But now I have to buckle and confess that Melbourne’s weather is well and truly bizarre. The days have been sweltering all week, and the nights not dipping below 22 degrees, but what the hell is this pea-souper fog? I turned on the headlights, fog lights and windscreen wipers yet had the windows open and took some clothes off because it was so bloody hot outside. Freaky weather town, I still love you but I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.

Crank-o-meter: dumb-arse weather

February 11th, 2010 | Tags: general delusions | Category: general delusions | Comments (8)

Hey, just as a quick aside as part of researching this entry, it was my two-year blogiversay in January and I didn’t realise! I’m off for a slice of flourless, chocolate-less, sugarless, everything-less chocolate cake to celebrate.

I was in my web site admin thingy yesterday to work out when my hosting fees were due as I had a creeping feeling that I owed someone money but couldn’t pinpoint where or for what. In fishing around my site admin, I found my statistics for February so far — check out the only search terms that have directed here:

Three years of Pink Ink and two years of crankypants have amounted to being known for a single blog entry on peddlers of plastic trees to pierce fucking cocktail onions and someone who thinks gout is a physical and sexual entity. A bottle of gin and I will be taking a nap.

Crank-o-meter: eeeeeeeeppppppppppppp

February 3rd, 2010 | Tags: shittypants | Category: shittypants | Comments (16)

Lordy, lordy, it’s the last day of January and I haven’t shown off half the people and places I thought I would. I feel like Willy Wonka at the chocolate factory gates, urging the golden ticket winners on: “Hurry, please! We have so much time and so little to see. Wait a minute — strike that! Reverse it! Thank you.”

Today’s planned outing was to Mulberry Hill, the Baxter (or Langwarrin South as some cheeky landgrabbers believe) home of famed artist, Sir Daryl Lindsay, and Lady Joan Lindsay, also an artist but best known for her writing, including Picnic at Hanging Rock. However, Mulberry Hill is open only for a few hours on Sunday afternoons and it’s 37 degrees with a nasty hot wind outside, so I’m bunkering down inside with my internet connection instead.

Mulberry Hill. Source: www.visitsorrento.com.au

Sir Daryl's studio. Source: www.visitsorrento.com.au

Many historic properties pepper the area including Sage’s Cottage in Baxter, McCrae Homestead and Coolart Mansion, but I also wanted to show you the property of one of Langwarrin’s most treasured residents, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch. Dame Elisabeth opens Cruden Farm several times a year and my timing was out by a week to sneak in during a jazz festival.

Cruden Farm. Source: aaa.org.au

There’s a whole region along the southern flanks of the Mornington Peninsula I haven’t covered, mainly because of the difficulties travelling around the area during summer and my weekends have been evaporating so quickly of late. One place I adore is the Point Nepean National Park at the tip of Portsea, firstly because it has among the prettiest ocean views you’ll ever see and, secondly, because I used to have custody of the master keys to more than 200 hectares of fenced-off land and we’d go four-wheel driving during work hours through the tracks and sand dunes (I swear it was all in the name of checking boundary fences). A battle raged for years whether to sell the former Commonwealth-owned land for conversion into luxury private developments or donate to the Victorian State Government and the land is now in the State’s hands.

Point Nepean. Source: www.parkweb.vic.gov.au

I also wanted to go to some of the burgeoning markets, but my favourite day is the Mornington market on Wednesday, and I now work on Wednesdays. I missed the weekend markets this month as I have been so tired by Friday night that I’m less than functional by lunchtime on Saturday, when most markets are winding down. Here, have a box of fresh local produce instead. The asparagus spears are already in my tummy.

I suppose it’s back to being cranky. I’ll work on that soon. Right now my washing machine has taken my doona captive and I can’t find the bloody instruction book to unlock the door and get it out — what is a water outlet fault anyway? It sounds costly.

Crank-o-meter: but wait, there’s more!

January 31st, 2010 | Tags: general delusions | Category: general delusions | Comments (9)

Art comes in many guises. One of those guises is the Baxter dog kennel maker’s giant wooden dog. I don’t know, it doesn’t seem high art or accessible public art, but, um, seems representative of the large art movement. We don’t have a giant prawn or big banana or oversized sheep in our locality, so the large wooden dog it is.

I’m not apologising for the poor photo quality as I almost got the car stuck in a culvert on a busy road and I don’t know how many locals/friends/relatives saw me hanging out of the car while trying to photograph the large wooden dog. I’ll suffer for my work but I refuse to incur ongoing humiliation.

Crank-o-meter: woof?

January 29th, 2010 | Tags: general delusions | Category: general delusions | Comments (4)

Adjacent to Crib Point is the small town of Somers. I’d have taken photos of its pretty surrounds for you, but I have a hideous habit of getting lost when driving to Somers and ending up in completely disparate places without realising. The nice people at my last job ended up banning me from driving to lunches at the Somers Store as I’d end up in Balnarring or on the main road to somewhere else even though I’d photocopied the Melway page and had the route down to no more than two turns.

But Somers is a hidden gem on the peninsula, so perhaps other people get as disoriented as I do. The houses are mainly single-storey or timber split-level on generous blocks with simple but complementary native gardens and many street trees. The population seems to be comprised mainly retired folk who enjoy the relaxed lifestyle, self-employed people and tradies who like taking their boards to the nearest surf beaches and artistic types who appreciate the quiet beauty of the area.

One artistic type in Somers specialises in pastel animal portraits and she’s been working on capturing the meezers and sausage dogs over the last few months. Kathryn is rather forgiving of my inability to find her house and allows me to spoil her lovely Labra-poodley-spoodle dog rotten and drool over her kick-arse Apple Mac where she stores photos for commissions. She said no to me living in her sun-drenched and spacious studio though.

The four cat portraits are complete (I wish I had taken photos *before* having them framed so excuse the glare) and the dogs’ portraits will be finished last December. Trying to ask an artist about a deadline is like trying to herd cats, so things will be done when they’re ready. She has done an amazing job and the picture of the late Tabasco as a wee thing brings tears to my eyes.

Crank-o-meter: artist envy

January 25th, 2010 | Tags: general delusions | Category: general delusions | Comments (8)