A big high five to Jodie at Mummy Mayhem – this is snowballing. Fab idea too. Everyday women with normal lighting looking beautiful. No makeup, no airbrushing, no fancy photography lighting and no soft focus. Love it.

To be honest, going makeup free wasn’t too much of a chore for me, as I don’t tend to wear any unless I am going out somewhere. So no makeup at home, or to pick up at school or duck down to the shops. Makeup is for work out of the home, weddings, nights out and clothes shopping. (What is it about those shop mirrors?)

The bigger step for me is posting a pic of myself, because I don’t tend to. So here is me, about 10 minutes ago. Resplendent in my Oscar the Grouch pyjamas. Yeah, PJs at 9am. I am livin’ the high life.

So, I don’t drive.

I can hear you gasping from here. It’s the response I usually get when people discover this fact about me. Followed by “You don’t drive?!” , possibly in case I had said I don’t jive. Which I don’t really either, but you know, not so gasp-worthy.

Since I’ve been not-driving for 38 years, I am used to facing this incredulity, although it has really only hotted up over the last fifteen years or so. People were less concerned when I was in nappies.  I understand that I am a licenseless anomaly in a world of cars, and that to some people this is incomprehensible. When people wonder how I get around, I usually reply honestly about using local facilities and public transport, saving car-necessary travel for weekends and evenings when my husband is home. I occasionally get a little annoyed by obvious scorn, but I’m a fairly affable lass, so I try not to bite back. Sometimes, just for kicks, I channel my inner-Blanche Dubois and breathily coo “I have always relied on the kindness of strangers” and bat my eyelids and try to draw attention to my bosom. This usually ceases the line of questioning, and indeed the conversation altogether most of the time.

Some curious folks want to know my reason for not driving. Truth be told, there isn’t really a reason. Not a single one anyway. The reason for not learning when I was 17 was different to the reason for not learning when I was 23 which is again different to why I still don’t drive now.  It is more complex than just lack of interest, although that has become a major factor, but there is no deep, dark underlying story behind it either. I just don’t.

One thing I have found is that not driving has its benefits. My life is slower than most. My children’s lives by extension are also slower. They have never had to spend afternoons ferrying between activities or appointments, because I try to keep as much as possible in our local area. In doing so, I have felt a real connection with our neighbourhood and our suburb. Our local school, local sports clubs and local small shopping centre have provided us with a community that we really feel a part of.

My children walk more than they would if I drove. They walk to sport and music lessons and school. Sometimes with me, often without. They have been able to learn independence. And road sense. And an awareness of nature. And again, a sense of community.They have never had to miss out on a social opportunity due to my lack of a drivers license. Their friends’ parents are always willing to offer a lift to parties and days out, and I return the favour by being available for last-minute before and after-school care when they need it.

People often dwell on the worst case scenarios of not driving. I have a plan of course. My husband is rarely more than a phone call away. I have good friends and neighbours who would help me out if an occasion should arise.  Taxis are available in emergencies. Ambulances in real emergencies.

I’m not a rabid anti-car warrior. Top Gear is one of my favourite shows. I salivate over the Mercedes SLK in the picture above. I love watching the Grand Prix. I admit that often things would be easier if I had a license. But things aren’t as hard as you might think when you can’t drive.

Why don’t you try it one week? Look at all the things you do in your car, and work out which could still be accomplished without it. Put the kids (even the little ones) on the school bus or make them walk to school. Budget for only one big supermarket trip in a week. Use only one car, if you usually use two. Not everything will be feasible, because obviously not everybody has set their life up the way I have. But we can all slow down a little sometimes, because in the words of the great philosopher Ferris Bueller:  “Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Mia Freedman’s blog yesterday on the ad for UK department store John Lewis, had commenters remembering the ads and films that made them cry. I simply had to dig up this Just Humour Us post from 2006, if only to make fun of Susan again:

On the weekend I watched the Susan Sarandon/Winona Ryder version of Little Women with my daughter. As damning with faint praise as the word is, all I can describe it as is ‘nice’. You see, I thought I would cry more. You know, especially in the scene where - 

S: Wait a minute. You’d better not say too much in case you spoil it.
M: Everyone knows, don’t they?
S: Better safe, than sorry.

OK – especially in the scene where the whole y’know thing happens with the sist-

S: Careful, there.

Anyway I thought I would cry more, but I didn’t. So it was nice, and that’s that.

The whole thing did however get me thinking about the big tearjerker scenes in movies and television. So here they are: Our Favourite Bring Out the Tissues Moments

Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey – I read this book as a kid, and just knew that the movie was going to be the end of me. The little boy, waiting so patiently for his dog, and the other dog and cat come running home, and he’s happy to see him, but still waits for his old dog. He (and the viewers) thinks all is lost, and then – finally – the faithful old dog comes limping across the yard to him. Waaaaaaaah!

Breakfast at Tiffanys – towards the end, a distraught Holly Golightly tosses Cat out into an alley in the rain. And he’s sitting there in the rain. And he’s getting all wet. And then she goes back for him, and can’t find him. And did I mention it’s raining? And finally with Paul’s help, she finds the Cat, and they hug him and each other. Waaaaah!

Toy Story 2: When Jessie the cowgirl doll sings “When Somebody Loved Me”. The little girl grows up and stops playing with her. Then one day she takes her out again, and Jessie is all happy, thinking she has her friend back, but she’s really just taking her away to be dumped. Waaaaaah!

S: That’s your top three, and they’re about animals and a doll? What about real people?
M: I like animals. You give me some then, smartypants. Sophie’s Choice? The Shawshank Redemption? “Your girl is lovely, Hubbel?”
S: Uh – I was going to say Cool Runnings.
M: Not the movie with John Candy and the Jamaican Bobsled Team?
S: That’s the one.
M: Oh this should be good.

Cool Runnings – The Jamaican bobsled team have overcome all obstacles (not the least of which being they come from a small Caribbean Island and this is a sport involving ice) and are competing in the Winter Olympics. They have a run-down second hand bobsled. After a humiliating first run, they pull themselves together and start their second run perfectly. The crowd is cheering, they are making record time and it looks like they will make the finals. Then their bobsled starts to fall apart and they crash. The medical team rushes in and just when you think that the athletes have all been killed they crawl out from underneath the bobsled, pick it up and carry it, limping over the line to finish . The teams who were ridiculing them only minutes before lead the applause. It’s a beautiful moment… (sigh) Look I was 8 months pregnant, okay?! All those hormones.

M: Fair enough. And now on to the biggest tearjerker I’ve ever seen. Do you remember the old Kleenex tissues ads with the little boy and the duckling? I’m talking the early 1980s here.
S: Not to forget the ads for Kleenex, Hallmark, Huggies nappies. The emotional manipulations of the advertising agencies know no bounds.
M: Ah yes – never underestimate the buying power of weepy women .

Yep – Cool Runnings is Susan’s most memorable tearjerker moment. I will never let her live it down. But in the interests of full disclosure, I get a lump in my throat and well up every time the Rohirrim come riding over the hill at Helm’s Deep at the end of the second Lord of the Rings movie. I am a sook and a geek.

Come on – ‘fess up – which ridiculous ads and movie moments have made you cry?

My girl is so beautiful that I swell with pride when I look at her.  I suppose it is entirely possible that she is quite ordinary-looking, but I only see beauty. Perhaps it is because of what I see.

When I see her legs, long and colt-like, I picture her running onto a netball court on wintry Saturdays. She is always bubbling with enthusiasm – not because of a particular love of the game, but because she is surrounded by friends. She is part of a team. With this group of girls she has experienced highs and lows.  This team, that suffered humiliating defeat after defeat followed by a season that surely could only belong in a clichéd feel-good sports movie, could teach many adults about sportsmanship and friendship.

When I see her hands, long fingers and large knuckles like her father, I hear a flute playing. First the piercing squeaks of the early learner, followed by the monotony of major and minor scales and finally the soaring notes as the pieces become more polished.  I marvel that her hands, with their dirty, gnawed nails and ink-marked fingers, can produce such beautiful music.

When I see her hair, no longer the blonde of her infancy, I see the tangles and knots that I have smoothed over the years. Knots gained from tree branches and bike helmets. Tangles from expeditions to the creek, from hanging upside down while watching TV. Every morning I tease them out (not always carefully) and arrange her mane into a tidy ponytail or plait. Every afternoon she comes home, looking like she has been “dragged through a hedge backwards”.  Always beaming with the adventures of her day.

When I see her eyes, long-lashed and shining blue, I see her brow furrow as she sees some unfairness in the world.  From an unkind word from a classmate, to stories of animal cruelty, to the larger social injustices she sees on the news. She doesn’t understand hate, and cannot bear intolerance. She is still learning about speaking up for others, about standing up for her beliefs, but she is trying. I know she will when it counts.

When I see her smile, I hear her laughing. From the hearty belly laughs of her baby-self to the secretive giggles of a pre-teen with her friends. The squeals of delight as she wrestles with her beloved ginger cat and the wry chuckles as she sits beside us and watches Fawlty Towers or Seinfeld, finally old enough to share the jokes.

My girl is beautiful.

Related Post: About a Boy

So yesterday the twitterverse and then the news websites and then the radio and TV news (because that’s the order it seems to happen these days) were all aflutter with the news that notorious gangland figure Carl Williams was killed in prison. I don’t think the news would have been much more than a blip on my radar were it not for the massive success of the Underbelly series.

I keep hearing people voicing the opinion that the show glorifies real life criminals. Or that they “don’t get it” by which statement (one of the most dismissive things you can say to a person, akin to a teenage “Whatever!” in my book) I am supposing they mean to say that they don’t enjoy the show and they are quite surprised that it is so popular.  I imagine a lot of people watch because it has become a “watercooler” show and to watch means a good conversation the next day. Or maybe they are fans of the true-crime genre. My husband is. He will watch or read anything based in Chicago in the 20s, New York in the 70s and wherever Chopper was in the 80s. He’s not a degenerate, I swear. He doesn’t think these guys are anything other than thugs at best, and cold hardened killers at worst. He just finds them intriguing.

I’ve watched a few episodes but I haven’t found it particularly riveting. The fashion and the hairstyles are fun with the 70s and 80s stuff, but I’ll stick with Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes for those, thanks. I like the shots of the old Aussie banknotes too. It doesn’t seem all that long since we changed over to the new notes with the plastic and  the holograms, but whenever Underbelly flashes up a shot of an old twenty or fifty, I chortle with nostalgic delight. “Remember them?!”  Otherwise I tune out, or get my husband to sacrifice any watercooler cred he may have had by making him watch it online a couple of days late. I don’t care. I don’t have a watercooler in my home office – the only underbelly that gets any attention around here is this one:

Pacino - named by my husband, of course...

Do you watch Underbelly or watch/read any other true-crime books or series? What do you think the fascination is? And what is your watercooler show of choice?

I answered this “25 things”  meme a while ago on Facebook, and thought it might be nice to break up the Deep Thoughts I’ve been posting about lately, because I am really quite shallow.

1.I am completely and profoundly addicted to coffee.

2. I desperately need a haircut. I am morphing into Cousin Itt (with Morticia grey streaks.)

3. I have to leave the room during tense moments in sport. Particularly if the Wallabies are playing, and the last World Cup nearly killed me (the football one, not the rugby one.) 90 minutes of tension at 5am is not good for me!

4. I call soccer ‘football’ because I am both a wanker and a wog.

5. When I was a kid I used to go with my Dad to watch KB United play. I used to take my teddy bear dressed in a team scarf and beanie.

6. I am a writer because I love words. Also because I can spend my working day in my pyjamas.

7. I know more about Star Wars than my kids, and I will yell at them if they ask me one more time if “this is the one with the ewoks?”

8. Jar Jar Binks made the Ewoks look like fucking Shaft.

9. That is a quote from Spaced. I love Simon Pegg.

10. I am not a geek. I swear.

11. OK – maybe I am – a little bit.

12. Apart from a year in Germany, I have lived my whole life in the zone of my archnemesis, the Sydney Funnel Web spider.They are found from Nowra (where I was born) to Newcastle (where I grew up and live now.) I swear they’re after me!

13. I sincerely believe that my extreme arachnophobia comes from watching the Dr Who “Planet of the Spiders” episode as a kid.

14. “People are Stupid” is my mantra. Seriously, once you accept this, life gets much easier.

15. Frangipanis used to be my favourite flower until everyone started sticking them on their damn cars.

16. I am a little bit jealous that our cats like my daughter more than me, but I have come to accept that she has the Kavorka for cats.

17. The dog likes me though.

18. The dog also likes random strangers and sniffing other dogs’ butts, so I am finding little solace in this fact.

19. My Arts degree means that I can answer all the brown questions in Trivial Pursuit. That was four years well spent, yes?

20. My obsession with pop culture means I am also quite good at pink questions, and having once worked in travel helps with the blue. Tony is good at Sport and Science. If we just learn some history and politics we’d be the perfect team.

21. Sometimes I think with our Mad Trivia Skillz, we should quit work and just do the pub trivia circuit. Except we both find it hard to focus on anything other than beer while in a pub.

22. I would rather have a good gin and tonic (Bombay Sapphire and Schweppes Tonic water) than any fancy cocktail.

23. I am a literary snob who not-so-secretly loves reading chick lit. This is because all the worthy literature is so damn depressing. Kind of like the Best Picture Nominees at the Oscars.

24. My kids are quite possibly the funniest, cleverest, sweetest children that ever lived. I know every mum thinks that, but it’s TRUE!

25. And some mornings I would still trade them in for a really good cup of coffee.

Last Friday night I attended a talk by Maggie Hamilton, author of What’s Happening to Our Girls, subtitled “Too Much Too Soon, how our kids are overstimulated, oversold and oversexed”. Basically the book covers the range of influences on our children, and the issues they are facing – particularly girls – from early marketing to infants through to low self esteem, “sexy” images and sexualisation, materialism, body image, pornography and the evils of cyberspace.

Today I talked to Carol Duncan on our local ABC 1233 in Newcastle about the book, the talk and how I personally feel about the issues our girls are facing -  accompanied by the wonderful Jayne Kearney (editor of Sunny Days magazine) and my mate Susan from Reading Upside Down. We all attended the talk and all have daughters not yet in their teens.

Both the book and the talk painted a pretty grim portrait about the world our girls are growing up in – complete with images from pro-anorexia sites, children modelling adult clothes, high heels for babies etc. It was shocking stuff. Lots of audience members gasped at times. And while I make jokes about women clutching their pearls, the images and information presented was disturbing. Rightfully so.

But are all our girls in trouble? I look around at my 11 year old daughter’s peers and I see kids not that dissimilar from myself at that age. They know all the words to the latest pop songs playing on the radio, they want to wear the latest fashions, they are smitten with cute boys in the playground but still would rather giggle with their girlfriends. Sure the scary wide world of web is out there now, but I like to think I’m pretty savvy when it comes to stuff that is online. I keep myself informed (and I am hugely curious) so I’ve seen or at least heard of most of the explicit and/or risky things that Maggie Hamilton mentioned in “What’s Happening to Our Girls?”

So here’s the thing – I don’t believe that the next six years or so are all doom and gloom for my daughter. I think I am doing a good job of showing her a taste of what real life is all about while still letting her be a child. I hope she will continue to come to me with her problems, and also continue to surround herself with other good people that she can turn to when Mum isn’t enough – because I wont always be enough.

I am also not blinkered enough to think that every girl is like my daughter. There will be girls who slip through the cracks, girls with low self-esteem who fall prey to some of the worst life experiences that are out there. Girls who have not been given the opportunity to be children, who see far too much of real life from far too young an age. So after Maggie’s talk and after my discussions with Carol, Susan and Jayne today I have been wondering what I can do to help them.

Barnados is one foundation that comes to mind.  So is Stewart House. Both can always use the support of the community at large to help them continue helping our children in need. I am going to do something positive to help and am calling on all my readers to look for ways to do the same.  Even just a small contribution has to make more of a difference than just pearl clutching and being afraid.

Tell me what you think – what are the biggest issues facing girls today, and can you think of any other positive ways that we can help?

On the weekend I went shopping with my daughter for some clothes. At almost 12, she has definite tastes. It has been a long time since I dressed for fashion rather than comfort, but I thought I was doing pretty well at pointing out colours and styles that are “in” this season. But then I found myself furiously shaking my head “No” at a cropped denim jacket that would have barely skimmed a bikini top. “Jackets are for warmth and I’m not paying for half of one!” I said, and then quickly looked around for my father. Surely those were his words, not mine!

You see, as much as I like to think I’m pretty cool (Are kids still using that word? “Cool”?) I do tend towards the fuddy-duddy at times.  Trouble is I can be a bit unpredictable with my preferences. For example I hate flat-brimmed caps, low hanging pants and “bling” on boys. But my son is one of only a few lads with long scruffy hair in a class of “short backs and sides”.  I turn up my nose at designer wear and brand names but gladly fork out for Globe skate shoes if it means my kids will wear black leather shoes to school without a fight.

We eat dinner as a family almost every night, with the table set and the television off. At the end of the meal, if we are still sitting and chatting, the kids need to ask “May I be excused” before they leave. Terribly old-fashioned, and yet I don’t care if they eat breakfast while hanging upside down on the lounge watching cartoons. On school mornings. While still in their pyjamas.

We have a mobile phone ban in place until Year 7, but umpty-two computers, a PS3, multiple iPods and Nintendo DSs. I refuse to get pay TV but with the endless hours of television series and movies we have on DVD, I can’t see how it would possibly change our viewing habits. Yes to The Simpsons, no to Home and Away. Neighbours at a pinch, but only if I can watch too and laugh at it – and none of them during dinner of course! No chewing gum! No bubble gum! No stupid sour liquid confectionery in a squirty bottle. Coke? Occasionally as a treat.  Chocolate? Hell yes! You can’t colour your hair until you are fifteen, but then you are allowed to dye it blue if you so desire. Lip gloss, sometimes. Lipstick NEVER!

So what do you think? Am I normal? What rules do you insist upon in your home? And which ones do you let slide?

With the advent of a national school curriculum in the news this week, I thought I’d gauge the opinion from my own personal expert on all things educational – my father, Papa Smurf. Papa Smurf was a high school maths teacher for umpteen years, and he has also been a parent for umpteen more, so he can see both sides of that particular coin. I was hoping to get some good old-fashioned smurf wisdom.

So for the record, Papa Smurf thinks that a national curriculum “makes sense. We are one country and people are becoming so much more mobile. Years ago people used to live in one street forever, now they move from street to street, town to town and state to state quite easily. It makes sense for a Year 10 student in one state to be able to simply pick up where they left off in Year 10 in another state.”

Sensible chap, that Papa Smurf. You can see why he’s the one they go to in the Smurf village.

So (I asked) why is this a big deal? Why are people getting worked up about it?

“Because they’re idiots.”

Ah. Of course.

Love ya, Dad!

I bought a new fridge on the weekend. Mostly because we needed more space, but also because I love the idea of a dedicated spare fridge in the garage for drinks. This will also come in handy when my husband brings home “Surprise Meat”.

There are two types of Surprise Meat. The first is that of meat trays won at the Friday Night Raffles, offered up like a peasant seeking indulgences from the Pope, in atonement for spending too long at the RSL after work.The second kind is  enormous bulk bags of dog bones that were on sale when he went to the butcher’s for something to throw on the BBQ.  Both kinds of Surprise Meat would be great value for money, except we have to call the kids in to eat a litre of icecream and 2 bags of grated cheese to fit it all in. Not anymore. “Straight to the garage!” I will bellow, thus taking care of both purchases and purchaser for some time.

Another delight of my new purchase has been the owner’s manual. Now I know what you’re thinking – “It’s a fridge! Plug it in. Turn it on.” But this new-fangled appliance has a special cooling area for meat, as well as some digital display bits and a water dispenser, so I wanted to make sure I was “doing it right”. No RTFM errors for this little black duck.

Of course I forgot to take a refresher course in manualese and techish. This manual seems to have taken a particularly convoluted course through one of the dodgier online translators.

Highlights include:

• When the door is opened, the warmer air can’t influence in the fresh zone. So you can store food more fresh in it.
• Inserted convertible room must be placed at its position. If door is opened, it can’t fill the role of it.
• …and oxidize under sunlight to decomposing malodor by ultraviolet.

Most puzzling were the instructions included with the water dispenser. Do not use anything other than water including. That’s it. Including what? Now I’m wondering what thing I could have possibly thought of that doesn’t fall under the “anything other than water” stipulation.Although I may have briefly considered how awesome it would be to have a chilled gin and tonic dispenser within reach at all times.

But my favourite part of the brochure is the warning box clarifying how to dispose of a fridge safely, so that children can’t become locked inside. Very important information, and the eye is drawn to it because the heading reads VERY DANGEROUS ATTRACTION! I want that on a t-shirt.