ms crankypants

I hobbled to the city last week for my three-week surgeon’s appointment and he was slightly vexed with my lack of skin sticking together where he slashed me open, but he was excited at the rate of my internal healing. I’m still in the moon sandal and the first attempt at getting a shoe on was a big fail, so I’m trying again this weekend. And I’m getting a ride to the beach as my friend said walking in sea water is helpful for swollen gammy feet, so I’ll be the dork at the beach in Melbourne’s winter taking my foot for a paddle. I used to do that with racehorses so I’m fully expecting to come out of the water a thoroughbred.

I returned to the day job and my manager has been collecting me and dropping me home, which has been a huge win for both of us. I get a ride and he gets my sparkling company and amazing motivation to work until about 1pm when I start missing my nanna nap.

The funniest part of the trip to the surgeon’s was at the tram stop to return to the city. I saw a young executive-type chap wearing a smart suit, shirt and tie, and one of his legs was encased in a toe-to-knee moonboot with his trousers tucked in. I didn’t think before speaking and said, “Hey, yours is better than mine!” He looked at my tits, looked bewildered and then realised I was referring to my inferior moon sandal. He nodded kindly like I was a bit of a moron and I vowed never to speak to strangers again.

But I couldn’t help myself. The train ride was stressful with two young men drugged off their nuts in the carriage. They got off at my station (of course) and waited with me at the elevator. I wanted to tell them to use the goddamn stairs because they weren’t functionally-challenged like me, but I remembered my vow to not talk to strangers. Then the taller and wider of the two tripped over an ant or something and nearly stood on gammy foot. I heard a voice yell, “Get the fuck away from my foot, you fucking moron!” Oh, that was my voice. I escaped unharmed.

Crank-o-meter: dragging my heels, and still not wearing polka dots

July 15th, 2010 | Tags: health | Category: health | Comments (11)

For a long time I have loathed the concept of young women dressing in skin-tight scraps to hand trophies to male sporting gladiators. This is from 27 Jul 08: “When I’m not throwing empty tinnies at the TV, I’m also lamenting the amount of men’s sports that are supported by grinning women wearing very little and dishing out the trophies. For heaven’s sake, women, stop being the support act and start leading.” I haven’t evolved.

As a result, I’ve given up watching most televised sports that do not seem to support or respect women and now I couldn’t tell you the names of three team captains in AFL or, hell, the names of three teams in rugby league.

But I can’t give up cycling: there’s bike chain lubricant in my blood and smatterings of scars on my arms and legs from hitting the bitumen with nothing but skin-tight scraps (more modest than grid girls’) between me and the road. It’s Tour de France time again and at least the French try to clad their models in more than bikinis and clear stripper heels. The leggy trophy-givers are usually dressed in sundresses that look as classy as one can in the traditional yellow and black when presenting the race leader’s jersey — think skinny, smiling bumblebees, or Stepford Wives inspired by Van Gogh like in this photo.

Source: cyclingnews.com

If you’re a woman on the international cycling tour, however, you get random dudes on the podium yet still can’t escape the female promotional models, although they’re dressed in sporting gear, I guess.

Source: cyclingnews.com

If you’re poor old Jerome Pineau, who in the photo is being awarded the polka-dotted jersey for leading the Tour the France’s king of the mountain classification, you’re congratulated by this:

Source: cyclingnews.com

Who on earth designed those abominations and who said they’d wear them with cameras around? Digital is forever, people! While I don’t support the cycling equivalent of grid girls, I more vehemently don’t support making women look like pox-ridden Oompa Loompas.

Crank-o-meter: carb loading, and not wearing polka dots

July 7th, 2010 | Tags: feminism, sport | Category: feminism, sport | Comments (20)

Just a quick one as I have a brain-freezing writer’s block and shooting pains across my foot and can’t stop whinging, but I wonder who at The Age gives politicians their identifying prefixes for news stories. Bill Shorten must’ve paid a few dollars for this beauty:

Labor factional warlord Bill Shorten has admitted he urged Julia Gillard to challenge Kevin Rudd for the prime ministership last week.

The federal parliamentary secretary from the ALP’s powerful Victorian right faction said he made the approach last Wednesday.

“I did speak to the then deputy prime minister and say she should think about this,” Mr Shorten told ABC Television’s Q&A program last night.

“She gave it a great deal of serious reflection.”

I want to be a factional warlord, but I don’t want to be a Labor factional warlord who crows about playing the part in a routing well *after* the event just to grandstand and look like a master power player. I want to be a classier factional warlord than that.

Crank-o-meter: just garden variety cranky

June 29th, 2010 | Tags: media | Category: media | Comments (10)

During my sussing-out visits to the podiatric surgeon’s office, I eyed off a resplendent blue moon boot sitting on a shelf: an aqua, geometrically squared-off thing from toe to high-calf that holds surgically-altered foot bits in place until they’re all mended again. I wanted one.

I returned to the land of the living on Tuesday with this monstrosity dangling off the end of my leg:

A fuckin’ moon sandal. It’s winter — my tootsies are freezing!

One of the notes for home care was keeping the leg elevated and the foot surrounded by a ‘tent’ to protect it from the weight of blankets. Well, that was a mission-and-a-half with stickybeak kittehs in the house. The first attempt at using a discarded cat bed … FAIL.

The cut-down vege box was sturdier and I thought its lack of comfiness would dissuade the other stickybeak kitteh … FAIL AGAIN.

The biggest pain in the arse about this situation is moving the box, bed covers, pillows, supporting cushions and goddamn 15 kilograms of cats whenever I want to move from a sitting to a reclining position.

Crank-o-meter: send more Endone, stat

June 19th, 2010 | Tags: animals are fun, health | Category: animals are fun, health | Comments (10)

I don’t suffer an over-active imagination and I’m not paranoid, but … I think this upcoming hospital gig for my Gammyfoot-ectomy is a ruse for a black-market organ harvesting operation.

Let me present the evidence:

I have been watching series four of Nip/Tuck and the theme flows around the arrival of the new partner of McNamara/Troy, the pouty and multi-skilled Michelle. She manages the business by day and harvests kidneys from drugged victims by night. Michelle is part of a posse of stunning and expert young women who work for James, played by the elegantly dangerous Jacqueline Bisset, who is under pressure to extract more organs for a nasty crime syndicate.

I’ve done a stocktake of my organs and I think a few would fetch quite a handsome price. Kidneys: never had a day’s problem so I’d be labelling them A-grade quality and putting one in the cooler box. Liver: some abuse earlier in my life but it’s a reconditioned number in excellent condition. Ears: there’s a whole host of stuff in there that could be harvested (not the wax, I mean the hearing thingies). Eyes: I can’t see for shit and wouldn’t bother ripping those out. Brain: well, anyone who wants my brain deserves to wake up with a sudden interest in chocolate, cats, knitting, baby elephants and bondage.

Now, let’s look at the ominous message left on the surgeon’s envelope:

They know that I know that they know.

Let me tell you this: I’m onto it. Just don’t steal more than half of my fingers so I can play Bejewelled during my recuperation.

Crank-o-meter: dear PurpleOwl, I hope I haven’t mixed up my words again. The thought of losing my brain is stressing me

June 11th, 2010 | Tags: health | Category: health | Comments (14)

I am a member of a club car. You can stop snickering and shaking your heads right about now, although it was pretty funny to apply for a high security clearance at my last job and have to tell the spooks about *all* my memberships.

The club is of the topless kind (the cars, not the members) and three states in Australia take turns hosting the nationals. We get together and compare car care product stashes, bitch about who’s got too much money to spend on fancy restorations, look under the same bonnets at the same engines and rubber bits as last time and sometimes play make-a-word with loose Datsun bonnet letters while a tad drunk. I’m too lazy to head to New South Wales and Queensland so I attend the Victorian nationals every third year, however, next week I was going to the Saturday street line-up in Geelong as I’ve got too much shit on before my Gammyfoot-ectomy.

While the Victorian nationals are handy as far as location, there is still a big fat streak of lunacy that an event for convertible cars is held in winter on the Queen’s Birthday weekend. It’s the opening of the snow season! I don’t know how many ego-charged drives I’ve been on wearing enough layers to keep Mawson trekking through Antarctica while fingers snap from my hand when I turn the steering wheel. It’s madness, and the jibes from daring to keep one’s roof attached firmly on a three-degree morning aren’t worth the dissent.

One year, when I was living in Sydney, the Victorian committee at the time committed an act of heresy and moved the nationals to the Easter weekend and we enjoyed a balmy few days in Shepparton. The replacement committee promptly re-scheduled the event back to fricking winter, when only morons and wood ducks are out and about.

This is a normal person’s street exhibition in normal person weather (the crankymobile is in the centre):

Today was allocated to preparing my car for next week, otherwise known as a moron’s day in moronic weather getting ready for a moron’s event:

My hands are purple from lack of circulation and I swear the snot running down my nose is turning into icicles. I’m going back inside to put my Pride and Prejudice DVDs on high rotation and hope the madness passes three years from now.

Crank-o-meter: wet and freezing

June 5th, 2010 | Tags: automobiles | Category: automobiles | Comments (7)

I received an invoice yesterday for services I don’t remember being rendered:

So many places I could go with that, but I’ll try to stay restrained.

Crank-o-meter: confuzzled

June 1st, 2010 | Tags: crimes against language | Category: crimes against language | Comments (9)

I need to throw one out there and ask for recommendations for online news services because I swear I’m getting more ignorant by the day.

I used to have The Age’s online news site flashed up, but today’s lead stories are something about a soccer game, the crying woman who finally got booted from Masterchef, a whinge that tropical holidays are too boring, a dead actress’s husband found dead, an AFL player escaping a penalty and, oh goody, the cast has been announced for the TV dancing show with C-grade celebrities. My brain is turning to over-boiled cauliflower with curdled cheese sauce.

And Kylie uses facial moisturiser, so make sure you bookmark that journalistic gem.

I eventually found a few paras on North Korea’s weapons program, climate change and the proposed mining tax, but I had to hunt and peck.

Oh, newsflash, fares are dropping on the Spirit of Tasmania, just in time for winter. I feel smart again. But not so smart that I’d suspect advertising masked as information because it was written by a staff writer.

What else should I be reading for a bit of world, a bit of local and a bit of analysis?

Crank-o-meter: IQ sinking by the minute

May 25th, 2010 | Tags: media | Category: media | Comments (12)

The only redeeming feature I can find about being A Certain Age is that I can blame my failing brain cells for forgetting all kinds of shit left, right and centre. The situation is dire if it’s taken me three weeks to remember to post photos of cake.

I toddled along to the Dutch bakery from heaven and couldn’t decide between the lemon tart and the flourless chocolate cake. And then I remembered I was the birthday girl and could have whatever I wanted, so I grabbed both! I felt like a bit of a piggy-wig carting two cake boxes down the street, but I’m of the age now that I don’t give a rat’s arse what people think.

The lemon tart thankfully wasn’t that shade of uranium yellow but I’m using a new image editor and can’t find the magic buttons to make my photography less craptapulous. Regardless, it was outstanding lemon tart.

The flourless chocolate cake was a revelation of dense chocolate cake (with almond meal if my taste buds serve me correctly), topped with ganache and with dark chocolate curls and wall around the outside. Why aren’t all cakes bolstered with dark chocolate walls, I must ask?

I found a tiara in a junk shop. And wore it. To the day job. And served leftover cake while wearing it. The co-workers are now scared of me and that was the effect I wanted.

I was struck by genius and decided to take a portrait of myself with Mini while wearing my tiara. Never work with tiaras or animals because he ripped it from my head and tried to bring down and kill the fluffy part along the crown.

I put my feet up after a pedicure and watched Bold and the Beautiful. My Gammyfootectomy is scheduled on 15 June and I’m deciding which colour nail polish to wear on the day (I know it’s irrelevant as I’ll go with squeaky clean feet so the surgical team isn’t distracted by my impeccable taste in goth nail colours, but it’s a nice way of living in denial about being cut to pieces by sword-wielding maniacs in gowns while I’m unconscious).

ThePurpleOwl sent mysterious text messages about receiving a consignment of elephants and I was checking my driveway daily for a convoy of elephant transporters. Eventually the parcel arrived after having travelled a long and circuitous route; I can only wonder how many Australia Post staff read the warning message:

The most ace thing ever is receiving an envelope to the House of Crankypants with a Douglas Adams postcode. You rock, my PurpleOwl, and for your awesomeness you get first ride on Mr Shuffles when he’s bigger and broken in.

The elephant wine glass charms are great fun. I tried to make a necklace for Mini but he cracked the shits at me again.

Crank-o-meter: any day is cake day

May 17th, 2010 | Tags: embarrassing stuff, food | Category: embarrassing stuff, food | Comments (10)