Here is my cat. She is a nice cat. She is black. She is evil. I can draw my cat. I use a C O M PU TER. It is fun.

Got to make this quick while everyone is out - BUT I JUST CAN'T RESIST IT ANY LONGER!!!! So, in the good old-fashioned tradition of the blogoshere rant I WILL VENT MY SPLEEN!!!!

(ew gross, something visually not nice just popped into my head then ..)

Anyway, here it is: Regarding Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' new kid, a fan shouted (while jumping up and down on an imaginary couch) "THIS IS A GREAT DAY FOR AMERICA. IT IS THE NEW CAMELOT!"

Now, dear readers, am I the only one to find that repulsive? (And I am not even American! )Yet I saw that replayed again and again last night on the telly in the news. Do Americans revere Tom Cruise that much? I thought he was generally held to be a power-mad pip squeak cum nutter!

Scientology. I know he is their figure head (hence the delusions of grandeur I suppose). But where did the Camelot thing come in to it? I know in the original Camelot there was a great theme of SHAME to do with Guinevere's adultery. So is it the shame of the illegitimacy of this new baby? Don't think so, because that fact is swept aside (though true).

Maybe there is the view that a new age has been ushered in with the King and Queen (concubine?) of Scientology who will convert the masses to the home-brewed psychology and "For Tax Purposes Only 'Religion'" of L. Ron Hubbard? (And is it not funny that he was a SCIENCE FICTION writer?!)

Whatever the explanation, I feel desperately sorry for this poor little girl. I wonder what age she will be when first dragged off to an "engram" hunt in her brain? And they do do it to kids, and even have books about it. (Check for yourself!)

Is it a Great Day For America?
I think it is a sad commentary, myself.

I couldn't believe my LUCK when I found a little maggot in my chocolate!!!

NOW WAS THE TIME TO TEST THE URBAN MYTH! (You know, the one we first heard at primary school ..) I was about to get showered with crates and crates of replacement chocolate coming down from the sky on their own little parachutes! So I rang the manufacturers, and waited.

Hoo hoo! You can't imagine the delight of that in itself. The marvellous anticipation! The day dreams, the night dreams, the inbetween dreams!!

Of course, I HAD SUFFERED FOR IT. Indeed, it HAD BEEN a rather harrowing experience to open my 250g block of hazel nut chocolate to find it all covered with cobwebs. And after I had finished eating that one, to have my emotional disquiet further compounded by discovering that my second bar of 250g hazel nut chocolate had the same little weevilly-looking cobwebs BUT in the corner a tiny weeny little cocoon with occupant, as well!

Now I have standards. And I have a definite rule, in a given amount of light, about a certain distance in centimetres that I have to maintain between what I eat and any obvious infestation. SO I ONLY GOT TO EAT TWO ROWS!!!!! I was fuelled by outrage (and a coma-inducing blood sugar leavel). Oh, but so lucky!!!

Sadly, 'twas all for nought. The day did come when I received my replacement chocolate with apology letter. And as I tugged the wee little parcel out of the letterbox I feebly whimpered tearily, in a small small voice,
"..But where is my legendarily huge box chockers full of chocky?
Where is my large shipping container?
And where oh where is my own personal OOMPA LOOMPA???????............................."

Still, console yourselves, dear readers, with this observation: I have but exhausted only one avenue in the chocolate-makers' street directory. So, perhaps it will be you and not me to be the lucky ones who find the golden maggot.
Let not the dream die!

I was in need of a dastardly plan. A plan so conniving, so sneaky, so scintillatingly brilliant that I WOULD REIGN TRIUMPHANT OVER MY KIDS!

And then it hit me. ROAD-KILL! I utter an evil laugh.

You see, something awful is about to happen. Something terrifying and tortuous. Yes. All the mums know what I am referring to. I must bring myself to write it ... it's ..it's
school holidays.

THE HORROR, THE HORROR !

But this time, this time I HAVE A PLAN! (utter evil laugh again). Now, they think it's going to be two weeks to do whatever they like. They think I am going to entertain them. They think I am going to spend ridiculous amounts of money trying to entice them out of their boredom and into interesting and fun activities. HA! They have another think coming, don't they?!

You see, the Three Little Pigs (or the three little TROLLS, as they were this morning) don't like anything. Not sport, not games outside, not reading (though they are all good at it), not this not that blah blah blah blah blah. So, I WILL MAKE THEM LIKE IT!!!!!! ha ha ha harrr!!
And how, oh devastatingly brilliant me, will I do that?? Simple!
BY MAKING THEM HATE EVERYTHING ELSE!!!!!!

Thus, the road-kill enters my Perfect Plan. (And I invite you all to use it freely. I like to generously dispense my wisdom..) All I need to do is to think of job after job, after chore after drudgery, after anything within the limits, or open to interpretation, of the child labour laws for them to do! That's how the inspiration struck me this morning - when I saw this guy on the highway, picking up a dead kangaroo. ( I never knew there was a road-kill man! But what a good idea for a business "YOU MOW 'EM, WE THROW 'EM!").

Anyway, what more a memorable holiday activity!? There's plenty to go around for everyone. And it requires only a few things we already own; a shovel (tick!), wheelbarrow (tick!) spatulas ...(tick! tick!) plus it is even educational. (Just imagine the hours of compulsory Mum-fun in species identication, labelling former anatomies, or we could invent a new game called 'Grisly Jigsaws'!)

OH, THE CLEVERNESS OF ME (again) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Super Nanny, eat your heart out!

STILL WAITING FOR ALL THOSE SUNSHINEY VIBES TO FILTER UP FROM MY UNDERPANTS. Needless to say, I am pretty bummed out when I have to resort to putting on my yellow "happy pants" in order to feel all positive and vibrant about life. I'm actually using all the heavy artillery today; I've got my yellow happy pants on, one of my laundry-disaster bras on (left in a red wash too long with my tie-dyed T shirts and came out looking kind of groovy and designer label) AND I am even wearing my HushPuppies with my SADDLE CLUB SHOE LACES "Hello world, this is me - e, life should be -e, fun for every one ..."

NOT WORKING!!!

And no, smarty-pants reader, I'm not going to eat chocolate. You thought I was weak didn't you? Anyway, the paracetamol and codeine should kick in soon. Poor me. I've been sick. But it was quite funny, actually, because I got to read the Readers Digest in the doctor's waiting room. AUGUST 1975!

So I was able to learn again about the wonders of SKYLAB - before it crashed to earth (in Western Australia, mind you!) in 1979. I remember that. One of the kids at school had a farm where bits of it landed and her dad brought a big chunk of it along to show everyone. Probably radioactive to some extent, but we didn't know. We just passed it around after picking a bit off ! Still have it. ( That could explain my headache ... .) The NASA guy famously said at the time, when they were trying to crash-land it somewhere safe, "Oh, Western Australia, there's nothing but Aborigines and kangaroos there!" Gotta love the Yanks.

I also read about some French guy tight-rope walking between the twin towers before they opened in New York. Gotta wonder about the Frogs. (And as Australians, we always use these term of address affectionately.)

The colour therapists need to know that this yellow underwear thing just doesn't work! The only thing my happy pants are doing is making my legs and stomach look even whiter than they are. I could try them on my head, maybe, and make my teeth look whiter! "You are you, I am me, we'll be free, hello world ..."

Think my medication is doing its thing.

This is quite disturbing but, dear readers, I AM HEARING VOICES !!!!!!!!

And they are saying " I am cake .... I am lovely ... I am cake".

You know that old saying, 'insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids' ? Well, I am blaming INSTANT JIM because he is a teacher, and he brings home the left over cake from the staff room and so it is he who is responsible for my madness my madness my mad ne ss s. Oh no, I'm twitching again!

He teaches at a boarding school (very la-di-da) and so the kitchen sends up to the staffroom what they have cooked for the kids that day for morning tea. Yes, I know, it is kind of gross to think of consuming foodstuff that has been kicking around a staff room for half a day, sneezed on, coughed on, picked at by the sadistic fingers that we know teachers have. BUT IT'S CAKE!!!!!!!!!!! Enough said.

But it doesn't stop there! He also " come to me .... come to me ... I am in the fridge .... i am lovely ..." brings home the left over cake from class parties at the end of the year, and birthday cakes as well!!!!!!! Oh, and I forgot the fancy caterers' cakes that they feed the teachers when they have to go to some professional development thing and are sweetened up because they don't get paid over-time ... yummy!

" ... am cake ..." The best cake he ever brought home, was this little Chinese boy's birthday cake that his mum had got especially made for the class. Well, I suppose
she had because it was huge - ALL THE MORE FOR US ! It was a chocolate mud cake with little blue icing pigs all over the top. Now, that cake really spoke to me! ".. LOVELY ...."

Look, I'm sorry - but I have to go now, must dash.

I AM COMING, MY DARLING ... I AM COMING!!!! ...

VERMIN! What is your 'fave' vermin? (No, you can't say your kids.)

Some people go really mental over vermin. But I don't, because I have learnt the ANCIENT SECRET OF VERMIN-ASSISTED HOUSEWORK!

Take, for instance your dog. Dogs count as vermin, and my beautiful, regal, red setter is, by far, my favourite useful vermin. He is a very vivacious, voracious vermin -varmint. Verily. Do you know how much time that mutt saves me in the kitchen?! Whoa, baby! My kids (really, we shouldn't count them as vermin ...) are known as the Three Little Pigs. For good reason. So, when nobody else is home (got to preserve the frilly apron illusion) I just open the door and say "Go for it, Dog!" and under the kitchen table is clean in no time! THIS IS GOOD ADVICE.

Ants are good, too. Consider how clean they are, for a start. They just come and go and take all the crumbs off the bench with them, and don't leave any mess behind! Voila! They are like those ever-working underwater pool cleaners - except free and for your house! Ain't nature generous?

Of course there ARE the bad kinds of vermin. Let us not speak of the pooping, wee-ing, smelling horrors of mice; the lurking, germy, dark-deposits of cockroaches (or co'roaches, as they are known in more polite society); or the evils of moths and maggots in your self raising flour! No! NO! These secrets must remain closely guarded, dear friends..

I found a lizard on my bed, this morning. There was a 'black headed python' in the school library the other day (though I suspect it was really a dugite - which is more highly venomous). We get 'white tailed spiders' here, which, once bitten, can cause ulcerating, necrotic sores and severe pain for years. ( Found one of those on my pillow, once. )Possums are vermin. They polish off my grapes every year. And of course we get the humble mosquito. I usually kill at least one or two every evening when I am playing my bass, and often you will hear me bounce off the walls as I roar "DIE! DIE! DIE! MOZZY SCUM!!!!!!!"

So, have you decided about your favourite vermin??? Oh all right. I'll allow "men".