Birthday Pallindrome...

Hey!!

If anyone wants a really good read today then they should scoot over to Gempires and check out her poem Nancy Of The Overflow.

It's seriously funny- and cleverly written.

I'd love to post a comment on it but beta-blogger won't let me.

Boo!!

Anyway..check it out if you get time.

Just click the link -yeah?

Nancy Of The Overflow...by Gemnastics

Hey!!

If anyone wants a really good read today then they should scoot over to Gempires and check out her poem Nancy Of The Overflow.

It's seriously funny- and cleverly written.

I'd love to post a comment on it but beta-blogger won't let me.

Boo!!

Anyway..check it out if you get time.

Just click the link -yeah?

Kyla...

We are making Mud-pies, getting filthy, and our Father tells us to get into the bath Right Now...

The bottom of the bath is gravelly and scratching my bum. And what's that my middle Sister has in her hand? It's sharp and shiny and in a little packet. She tells me She wants to shave my hairy legs and puts the packet up against my skin and it Pops.

Oops.

She runs out of the bathroom as the blood begins to turn the water a bright red, but returns quickly- with a Band-Aid and a plea to keep quiet and to stop with my crying. I'm only too happy to comply; we're only in the bath because we were naughty and got all dirty in the first place; but our Mother hears the commotion and has to call our Father to come back home from work to take me to the hospital, to get stitches ...

They hold Me down and sew me up with the Spiro-Graph; the name I have given the contraption that I can remember Them using on Me. It is like a small black sewing machine, criss-crossing my skin with black cat-gut that is as fine as spiderweb-silk; five neat sutures in all. Then Daddy took me for an ice-cream at the van that plays the customary Green Sleeves tune.

I got a plain double cone because he says it's too hot for a Choc Dip but it still melts dowm my arm on the way home. I make sure that there is still enough left so that the Other's can see that I got an ice-cream, so that they would know that I wasn't making it all up as Usual. My Sister is hiding under my bed, playing with my Sesame Street toys; my little Big Bird figurine and my Super Grover that's lost his cape- and She has the biscuit tin with her.

At first I am cranky that she has been playing with my stuff when I had to go and get stitched up, but then I remember the ice-cream and that She didn't mean to hurt me, so I climb under the bed as well. She asks me if it hurt to have stitches, and I tell her that it did, but that I know she didn't mean to cut my leg open, she just wanted to practice being a hairdresser for when she grows up. That's also how I managed to end up with those bald spots shaved on my head that other time- right before she scooted up the Rubber Tree- again with the biscuit tin in tow; and why all her dolls and toys over the years sported Spikes and Bobs as their haircuts.

When we were little she would practice her new hairstyles on us- my hair couldn't grow quickly enough for her, and was always as short as a boy's. She taught me how to plait on her Barbie's hair, a skill we used on the horse's manes and tails when we later went to Pony Club. She's not only the closest in age to Me; she's my best friend. She lets me tag along with her and her friends when they all go ice-skating together.

I'm also allowed to join their Club, too- we're called the HSC- or The Horse Supporter's Club; and all of the members have secret names. There's Mel Smell and Manda Panda, and Rek Bek and Roof Roof, and we have a clubhouse in Mel Smell's basement. The walls are covered in pictures of horses, mostly racehorses, that we've cut out of the newspaper. Our mascot, Woody the Saw-horse, proudly wears the home-made saddle that we've sewn together using Mum's old brown bath-towels, and he wears a real bridle that cost us ten dollars, new, from old George's Saddlery Shop.

Sometimes I wear the bridle and my Sister steers me by the reins, as I canter down the road after our Meetings, and the Neighbourhood kids yell out at Us to Get A Horse, but we ignore them as we serpentine the streets; performing pirouettes and Flying Changes. We nail together little jumps, known as Cavelletti, from the leftover wood after the garden benches got broken, and I Piggy-back her around the backyard, beneath the Hills Hoist, over a small show-jumping course, because even though I'm younger I'm still stronger- but I suspect that's what She says because she doesn't want to have a turn at being the 'horse'.

Once we had taken Star to the Farm we didn't have a horse of our own again until She saved up her pocket money for a year and bought Tristan- a nice-looking bay gelding; and once again we began the daily ritual of riding the shitty little bike up the hill every morning, Rain Hail or Shine. Tristan was very young and spoiled- and awkward to ride, with a dis-jointed canter that almost felt like his back legs were still trotting; but for all his faults he could jump a bit; so I used to take him down to the Sick Pervert's Riding School and try and get him to jump the large show-jumping course, the one that only a few of the best riders attempted; like that boy on Laddie I told you about earlier...

And Tristan did jump the large barrel jump at the end of the Triple Jump and was behaving so well That day that my Sister decided to ride him home herself. I tried to sit behind her on the horse's rump, but He's not having any of it, and he starts fidgeting like he's going to Do something evil- so I got off and went with Him in the car instead...

And I've already told you about that, so I won't go into it again.

My Sister got scared of Tristan after he bucked her off one day- her jaw still clicks from when it got dislocated- and so she sold him to a girl who renamed him Tameka- but not before she sent him away for six weeks trying to get him re-trained. I will always remember the day that he got back-it was the final day of the School Holidays and I was starting year Eight in the morning. Our little dog had followed us from home, so we tied her up while we fed the horse and put him back into his dirt square for the night...

All of a sudden Kaz, the girl who lived next door to the English Bitch, runs down and asks us if any of us owns a little Beagle, because it's dead. We rushed up to where we have tied her, our hearts in our throats, hoping against hope that Kaz has got it wrong- but the children from next door have been playing with her and have moved the rope higher onto the balcony, and joined two leashes together, which are now her Hanging ropes as She dangles, still at the end of the leash- a mere foot from the ground that might have saved her.

I lift her up as my Sister release the cruel knot that holds her, her tongue lolls lifelessly and her soft brown eyes are glazed over. Desperately I try and perform Mouth-to-Nose and CPR on her- which may have been a funny sight, but for a distraught thriteen year old who just wants to be a vet and save the life of this little dog this is an epic battle of life and death. One that I didn't win.

So much for fucking aptitude.

We wrap her up in a chaff bag and ring our Parents, so they can come and get her little corpse; they still can't believe that the dog still isn't in the backyard at home like she was supposed to be, like the last time they had noticed. Don't worry. We're beating ourselves up about it enough without any extra berating from them. Why the fuck didn't we just turn around and take her home once we had realised she was following us? What could have been more important than her safety? Her life?

Our Father buried her next to the aviary I made. I know the exact spot where she lies. I'm sure if I wanted to I could...

Actually, I don't think you want to know where I was going with that.

Sissy...

One of the main reasons I probably disliked my little Sister for all those years was because I saw her as the main rival for our Mother's affection. I guess you could say I was nastiest to her out of everybody, a fact that I'm not particularly proud of, because even though she annoyed the shit out of Me, she was actually quite a nice little kid, with short blond curls, a strawberry-shaped birthmark on her shoulder, and a permanently dreamy look in her eyes.

She wanted to tag along with Us everywhere we went, but the thing is, if she wants to come then the chances are that None of us will be able to go anywhere either, because She was too little to go anywhere exciting.

She's not allowed to come with us when we go across the road to the old Fort, for example, where we hide and play games amongst the rubble and broken beer bottles in the piss-reeking stone ruins. Someone has written, inside on the wall, funny rude poems. We wonder who wrote these poems- if it was kids like Us, or maybe if it had been the soliders who had hidden down here during the War who had done it- the ones who had dug these tunnels all the way through to the cliff-face on the other side of the Headland, the tunnels we follow with tall white candles that were lit by stolen matches...

At least if She reads this she'll know now what she missed out on.

I suppose that's one of the reasons why She never really learned how to ride a horse, because she was too little to come along with my other Sister and I up to where we kept the horses- though she did come that one time that I bet the English Bitch fifty cents that my little Sister would never be able to control my horse up the Galloping Track. Of course, I was right- the horse took off on her, just like she did on Me every other afternoon, but at least I had the benefit of being older and had a bit of riding experience, unlike her.

It was pretty mean and dangerous of me to have even let her try- but She managed to stay on somehow, and as she galloped off out of my view I see them both jumping over a small log and my Sister almost gets thrown off- both her hands are somewhere up under her chin, almost like She's praying or begging for a bone- the reins were totally useless.

I know this is all my doing, and if the horse runs straight across the highway and my Sister gets killed I'll never forgive Myself- but the horse just runs back to the same spot where she gets her saddle off every afternoon and comes to a dead stop- my Sister still in the saddle.

Everything is alright again. My Sister isn't left, mangled, beneath the wheels of a Semi-trailer. There are no broken bones to explain.

This time.

Crisis Averted. Thanks for the fifty cents.

Bitch.

The Swimming Pool Cake...

If you were in Class Two N in nineteen-seventy-nine at the school my Mother taught at, then the chances are good that you might remember Me, too.

That was the year I was in Kindergarten, so the children She taught were about seven, whereas I was only five. Sometimes, if I was home sick- or pretending to be- I would have to go to school with her for the day. I would sit at the desk in front of her, with a fresh new exercise book and a tin of newly-sharpened pencils, and did as much of the work as I could follow along with.

She was a great teacher to have- the walls of her classrooms were always covered in the student's art- one theme I can remember was Jason and the Golden Fleece, or something else to do with Ancient Greece, and some kid, whose name I never knew, had drawn a painting of Medusa with a head full of green snakes with red forked-tongues tangled amongst her black hair.

At recess time my Mother's little pets, Corrina and Elizabeth, take me around the playground and show me where the bubblers are. This school is like a maze compared to my school- all the buildings are the same green paint and brown doors.

Corrina. It's like a faeries's name isn't it? I guess you might say I liked her a little bit, and would often look at the class photo that my Mother had. She's also the reason why I was looking forward to going to high school- I would get to see what she looked like being older with her front tooth grown back and all; and we did end up going to the same school as the story turns out- but by the time she was starting year nine she didn't want to talk to some year seven kid whose Mother had taught her years and years ago, and she told me to piss off before I could even tell her who I was.

I suppose good faeries can turn bad.

A lot of my Mother's ex-students did remember Me, though, and would often tell me that she was their favourite teacher. It's funny, because my eldest Sister was taught by our Mother for a full year when she was six, and she remembers Mum being a mean and strict teacher...

She's really quite crafty, my Mother; she can knit, crochet and do macrame. Her fad at the moment is crocheting bikinis that she will never wear. She asked me which colour I wanted mine made in, but my Naturist's body's not about to suffer wearing swimmers anytime soon, so I've declined the offer- but still expect one will be wrapped up with my next birthday present. I won't wear it- my tits resemble two used tea-bags and look shit in a bikini.

Going down a completley different track....

One time my Mother made a party game for the girl who lived across the road- it was a whole lot of cardboard cut-out fish with metal tacks for eyes, that we 'fished' for with a pole and a magnet. I always wanted her to make me a big bucketful of fish to catch- I was jealous that she made one for the girl across the road- it must have been because she got run over by a car one day- in front of the bus-stop across the street from my house- that's why everyone's making such a fuss. It's only a broken leg, after all, and it's her own fault for not looking both ways and for thinking that she was faster than all the cars.

I think she was actually running away from her big brother, who was a really mean kid, and from what I later heard- an evener meaner man. They had a Corgi named Honey and their dad was a builder who looked a lot like Tony Barber, the game show host. Just thought I'd throw that in for any of you at home still playing Guess Who?

My Sister's tell me that they can still remember the days when our Mother used to cook all sorts of good stuff- like lemon-meringue and apple and meat pies. Not all together of course. Apparently she can make apple turnovers, too, and chocolate eclairs from scratch, but I've never seen the proof and I don't eat pudding. I caught the end of the craze, there were times where She might make a Walnut and Caramel slice to take along to the rare theatre night suppers she attended, and I would help her to crush the Milk Arrowroot biscuits with a rolling pin for the base while the liquid caramel bubbled on the stove.

She also makes our birthday cakes sometimes- my little Sister got a rabbit cake that was pink and covered in coconut the year her birthday fell on Easter Sunday. The year I turned four, the same year my little Sister was born, my Mother made me the swimming pool cake out of the Women's Weekly Cookbook- complete with green jelly for water and Jelly-babies floating in their chocolate-covered aniseed life-bouys. The best part of the cake is the pool fence, made out of chocolate biscuit sticks. I want to eat everybody else's fence bits.

That might've taken my mind of the itchy red dress with the small blue dots I have to wear. You can see the displeasure I feel at wearing it even in old photos- my arms folded defensively across my small chest. There are other photos of this event; the girl who broke her leg crossing the road is there- wearing a green crepe-paper party hat; dipping her cold Little Boy into the communal bowl of tomato sauce that is thick and crusty with broken-off sausage roll pastry flakes.

Next to her was baby Matthew, sitting in the high chair that turns into a baby's rocker, his cheeks red and chubby, his index finger up his nose, digging for gold...

And then there's Me, leaning against the wall, snarling at whoever was behind the camera, my party hat in shreds on my paper plate. I'm pretty good at pulling the wounded diva act when things aren't going my way.

I haven't had a party since- though who knows- I may break the rules when I turn forty, and have a party that year, with my then twenty one year old Son.

We'll see...

Agnes Norma Electra and Rose...

Not everyone is aware of the fact that a longish strip of toothpaste placed on the bottom of a second-hand bath is virtually invisible to the human eye. And if you can't see the trap has been laid then the chances are good that your arse is going to get burned.

Toothpaste burns the skin on your bum; okay?

My Sister's and I discovered this little truth, probably by accident, but we often used this little trick to annoy each other. Same goes for when our Parent's would go out, leaving the eldest two in charge. I was always on the Outer. I couldn't tell you how many times I was locked out of the house, only to be taunted with the promise of being allowed back in via a different entrance, told to run around as fast as I could around the outside of the house, only to have that door slammed in my face as well.

We would chase each other around with horse-whips and coat-hangers, and then pin each other beneath the kitchen stool- sitting nonchalantly up on top- while the one beneath screamed profanities. And we would scratch and hit and bite each other; but there has never been any doubt of our fierce loyalty to each other when it has been called upon or questioned.

I have three Sisters. We all start with an R. There's a funny story in our family that when my youngest Sister was born my Mother had to ring the Rabbi because she had run out of Hebrew names that began with R, and so the baby was called Bubbles for a month, until he got back to her with one that She liked well enough to use. Not that we are Jewish. Or even religious. But I think that all of our names suit us, at least more so than Agnes, Norma, Alectra and Rose; which was what we almost got called.

There is a photo of the four of Us, in a see-through photo album, sitting on the old brown, white and yellow-striped lounge. Our Mother had just come home from hospital with my baby Sister; she is on my lap and I am sitting next to my older Sister's who are holding their identical stuffed Giraffe toys. The photo was taken just before the baby pissed all over Me, which is the reason why I started to believe that I hated her, with a passion, for the next dozen or so years. I made her life hell- which greatly pleased me at the time.

There are other photos of Us; the one where we went to Sydney for the first time, on the train, to go to the May Day March and then over the Harbour by ferry to Taronga Zoo- and we are standing next to our little Morris Minor, with our matching blue flannelette shorts and white handbags. When we got there I rememeber my oldest Sister being so ashamed that we had never experienced purple taxis- we only had red and white ones- and her telling Me not to point them out so obviously, because then They would know how gauche and backwards we were because we weren't from There.

There were also the times that we would stay over at our Grandmother's house and sneak out of the big window in the down-stairs loungeroom, and play Knock-and-Run down her street. We do all of the houses, watching our victims from the shadows, giggling as the frustrated people answer their doors for Nobody. We walk down to the main street of our Town, and order hamburgers with the works and play the pinball machines while we wait. We've collected the money from in and around our drunken Uncle's mattress- and he never even notices- he probably just thinks he spent it all on booze. There is a pub across the road from the hamburger shop, and there are always a lot of drunks getting something greasy to eat at this hour of the morning- but nothing ever happens to us, and we noisily make our way back up the steep hill to Grandmother's house before they notice we've even left.

This could have been what happened the night before we all got caught shoplifting at the biggest department stores in the Mall. It was a Saturday morning, and we were going to the movies to see Screwballs- though we had told our Parents we were going to see something a bit more age appropriate, like Herbie Goes Bananas, or something equally as boring. I was pretty excited to be seeing Screwballs- I was only eight at the time- but my Sister or Cousin were going to buy me the ticket and then smuggle me in somehow past the Usherettes in their stiff red uniforms. They looked like blood clots, standing there on the red and yellow carpet by the Candy Bar.

We all had plenty of money, and the movie wasn't going to be starting for a little while, so we purchased our tickets and then went back to the Mall to look for some five-finger-discounts. I stole a tiny pair of pin-earrings; which was a little bit retarded of me- mainly because my ears weren't even pierced back then- but I just wanted to take something that wasn't too big or bulky.

I had on my purple jumper with the Deer among the Snowflakes, which was where I concealed my loot, up the sleeve, and I had made it out of the shop- I was free- but then my older Sister suddenly starts yelling out across the cobblestones of the Mall "There they Are- That's Who I'm With- Them Right There" sort of stuff, and the next thing I know I am being whisked up inside a glass elevator, just like the one that broke through the ceiling in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory after he had pushed the magic button- and we are being taken down a long corridor to the office of Denise Richard's- Store Manager.

I am so shit-scared by this time I think I started to cry, thinking we will all have to go the Police station in the back of a paddy-wagon and have our fingerprints taken. But worst of all is that I know we won't be going to see Screwballs anymore- and I won't get to see if that blonde chick on the poster's tight top really does bust open in the movie, showing off her big boobs...

Denise Richards- if you are out there reading this somewhere- you are one scary lady. And I guess you were damn good at your job because I never stole anything else ever again. Except for a few cans of red Salmon from my Father's pantry every now and then. Red salmon isn't cheap- but I do like it.

After we had the shit frightened out of us and our Parents had been notified we were allowed to leave. I was just grateful not to have been sent to jail. We went back up the Hill to Grandmother's house, not even pausing to climb on the Rotunda in the park- imagining punishments that were progressively worse than the last one we'd invented. We weren't kidding ourselves- we were still in big trouble for stealing- and we've shamed the Parents and our Grandparent's in the process.

But the ironic part of the whole day didn't come until a little later, when our little Sister- who was only about six and hadn't been out shoplifting with us- went uninvited over to the house next door to Grandma's; they had been having a big party the night before in their backyard under a giant Marquee that was as big as a circus tent. She stole a whole heap of Fanta and chips and massive bottles of Orange juice. My Sister's and Cousin and I failed to see how what she had done was any different to what we had done- except that She hadn't been caught in the act.

So then why didn't she get into trouble like we did?

I have a sneaking suspicion it's because they thought our little Sister was just following our bad example, and that if We were the only role-models that she had, then it was no wonder that she was a little thief as well.

Hey?

Love Hearts Pierced With Feathered Arrows...

One of my favourite ever stories when I was growing up was The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde. I remember sitting next to my Mother in the armchair in our lounge room and her telling Me the story of the Sparrow who would not fly South for the winter, but instead chose to stay behind and help the statue of the Happy Prince, who was too selfish to see that the Sparrow needed to leave in order to live.

He kept asking the little bird to pick the precious stones out of his jewelled eyes and out of his sword, and to peel his gold paint off in generous flakes and then take them to the poor and hungry peasants below them in the streets- like the little Match-stick Girl who had lost all of her matches down the drain- and the exhausted seamstress; who sews through the night to earn extra money for herself and her feverish child.

The Sparrow does this for the Happy Prince, right up until the day that it is too late, when the Prince wakes up to find his little friend, dead and frozen at his feet because she had stayed behind too long- because she loved him too much...

I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere that I haven't bothered to learn yet. But I'm not that bird; and I'm not dead yet. I can still fly away if I want to.

Maybe I'll fly firstly to the Lookout- and see if Our initials are still there on the lover's bench; alongside the hundreds of other scratchily-carved love hearts pierced with feathered arrows- and if it Is still there, then I'll really know that it really was Meant To Be. That We were supposed to be together; my Hubby and I.

Maybe it was only supposed to last until we had our kids- because that's all we seem to have to have in common, really, except for drugs and alcohol, a point that people often make when they meet us. But regardless- we are still together- and sometimes we laugh that we've got the longest running relationship amongst all of our friends, especially when all those 'more suited to each other than us' couples- those that are more suited than We supposedly are- break up or get divorced.

Maybe we are suited to each other. Not many people would put up with either of us for very long. I'd have a hard time hiding my feral moods from a new partner lomg enough to keep them interested, and drinking with his mates at the pub would be more of a priority than his new girlfriend would be, so she'd get sick of him pretty quickly. Probably. And then he'd come back to Me. Probably.

Maybe he just wants me to stay, like the Happy Prince wanted the Sparrow to stay...

And now that I've forgotten what I was going to say, let me start again.