"An ah oer na eeds et ?"

To set the scene: I’m on my end of year biology excursion. A much anticipated event. I’m at Sorrento Back Beach with my class and we’re there to observe the ecosytems of the rock pools and surrounding areas. We’re all tramping around the rock pools, finding specimens; crabs, fish, shell fish, anemones, star fish, sea  weeds, etc. We’re also measuring salinity, air temperature and water temperature. The air temperature is a scorching 18ºC, while the temperature in the shallow water at the edge of a large rock pool is a balmy 20ºC. The question is posed as to what the temperature would be out in the middle of one of the huge arse rock pools.

Have you ever offered to do something, but attached a condition to it, knowing that because of the condition you’ve attached to it, that you won’t in fact have to do it ? And in so doing, everyone thinks you’re a top chick 'cause you offered, but damn shame you couldn’t. But hey, you offered. I offered to do it, with a condition. A condition I was positive would let me off the hook.

In case you’re wondering what the big deal is, I’m unreasonably terrified of weeds and rocks and the beasties that may be lurking in them. And let me tell you, these huge arse rock pools were simply saturated with them. Well … all around the edges they were saturated with them, in the middles they were lovely and deep and gorgeously clear. I’m telling ya, these were rock pools you could swim laps in.

So anyway, generous me says, “Hey, I’d jump in and measure the temperature of the water in the middle ‘cept I’m too scared of all the weeds and stuff. Sorry.”

To which comes the reply, “So, if we can find somewhere for you to get in, where there’s no weeds and stuff, you’ll do it ?”

“Sure,” says I, after a quick glance to make sure all the pools are totally surrounded with weeds and stuff.

A very short amount of time goes by and bingo, my dear friends have found a place for me to enter a rock pool. Darlings aren’t they ?

I stand with trepidation at the edge of this rock pool and see that there is in fact a very narrow pathway through the weeds for a couple of metres, then there’s a couple of metres of weeds to swim over, then all gorgeous clear water. Shit, now I have to do it. I coax a friend to get in the water with me, for moral support. So she gets in first, to guide me in. Believe me, I’m truly pathetic when it comes to weeds and rocks and beasties that lurk in them. We establish that the water is roughly just over knee deep. I can deal with that. I hand my sarong to one of my support crew revealing magnificent purple floral bathers, complete with pouncy little skirt across the front. It would appear that clothing manufacturers think that only the elderly wear size 18+. (ps. 35 is NOT elderly).

So anyway, after summoning my courage I take hold of the hand of the girl in the water while also taking the hand of one of my shorebound support crew, and bravely step into the water. Which, may I say, is pretty freakin' cold. My water support person and I do a little dancing cuddle to swap sides. Lucky she’s a slim chicky or one of us would have ended up arse first in the weeds. I’ve left my sandals on in case one of the weeds accidentally touches my feet, and I  begin to sink into the sand whilst slowly sliding down a slight incline. I hadn’t expected this, but I tell myself to not panic. I recover my footing and move the couple of metres down to the edge of the weeds I have to swim over. The water is now lapping my bottom. I stand examining the weeds, casting pathetic looks back over my shoulder at my support crew, thinking how embarrassing it would be if my biology teacher had to jump in and save me in bum depth water. Then I wonder if she would in fact save me, or if they’d all just stand there shaking their heads at how utterly pathetic I was.

Everyone is shouting words of encouragement, “Go on, just do a shallow dive over the weeds, it’s only a little swim to the clear water, it’ll only take a couple of seconds and you’ll be there.” They sound encouraging, but I’m not feeling encouraged. A few  times I almost do it. Take a big breath, and ready myself for the launch, but I’m  frozen  to the spot with fear. Then  it occurs to me that the sand is still sucking at my sandal enclosed feet, and I think, shit, what if I go the shallow dive over the weeds, but my feet stick in the sand ? Man, I’ll be like, flat on my face in the water, over the weeds, floundering my arms around, then I’ll touch weeds, then I’ll panic, then I’ll drown. Not cause I can’t swim, but cause I’m scared of weeds.

Now I’m pathetic AND panicked.

I gain assurances from my teacher that she really will jump in and save me if I  begin to drown. I have to do it. I said I would. I take a final deep breath and launch myself over the weeds doing this weird arse half breast-stroke half doggy paddle uncoordinated swimming. My support crew is behind me, so they can’t see I have my eyes shut. I was too scared to have them open in case I saw weeds. Now, the water was pretty cold, which took my breath away to a certain degree, but the words  that next came out of my mouth were more distorted due to fear than cold. The panic takes hold with a vengeance and I start yelling out, “An ah oer na eeds et ? An ah oer na eeds et ?” (that’s panicked Trish for, “Am I over the weeds yet?”)

It’s got me buggered how anyone understood me, but they start yelling back, “Yes, you’re over the weeds now, you’re over the weeds, you can stand up now.”

I roll over onto my back and see  that I’m well clear of the weeds. In fact, I’ve made it to the middle of the pool. And even as the relief is washing over me a fresh wave of panic sets in. I have to stand up. I can’t even tell you  why I was scared to stand up. Maybe the uncertainty of  the depth of the water ? What if I couldn’t touch the bottom ? What if I  could ? Hey, I know I’m not making sense. So I flutter my little sandal clad feet down and find  the bottom, and stand up in water that barely  reaches my waist. I feel like a prize dick. I measure the temperature of the water. 17ºC. Any frikken wonder I’m cold. Then it hits me, I’ve gotta get back over those weeds, and this time I’ll have to keep my eyes open cause I have a rather small landing strip of bare sand to aim for. I make my way back to the edge of the weeds and attempt to just walk over them, but the first two steps I try to take land on wonky weed covered rocks. I can’t do it. I tell my water support person to get ready,  'cause she’s gonna have to catch me when I get back over the weeds. Poor skinny lil thing she is, having me launch my fat arse at her. I dive over the weeds and find myself on my knees on the sandy strip, with my arms wrapped around her thighs, holding on for dear life. I have no pride.

My support crew help me out of the water and hand me back my sarong. Everyone thinks I’m so funny and silly. Hmmmpf … I wrap my sarong around my shoulders and wander off to find more specimens thinking, they may think I’m funny and silly, but I know I’m brave. I’m like a super hero. I braved the weeds and rocks and beasties. Puh … funny and silly. I’m a bloody legend !

Well … at least no one had to jump in and save me.

Intrepid Explorers

It was a lovely day on Sunday, so when the kids came home I took them to the beach. We found a previously unexplored stretch of beach and commenced the hunt for treasures. You know, the usual stuff: star fish, shells, crabs, stones, bones and bits of broken coloured glass.

Amid Intrepid Beach Explorer Zoe's raptured screams of, "It's beautiful" every time she found a new item came an urgent request for backup from Intrepid Beach Explorer Mischa, "I've found a really big shell, and it's perfect, but I can't reach it." Then those big blue eyes gazing adoringly at me, "Can you get it for me please mummy ?" So I go to investigate and see what looks like the most perfect abalone shell nestled amongst some low growing seaweed about a metre out from the rocks.

I'm not so wild about seaweed so I make the decision to leave my runners on for the recovery mission. I step off the rocks into the water and it's really friggin' cold. I wade out to where I can reach the perfect specimen. The excitement is overwhelming. I steal a glance back over my shoulder at my Little Intrepid Beach Explorers, standing side by side on the rocks, gazing upon me like I'm Indiana Jones on a Crusade for the Elusive Perfect Shell.

They think I'm so brave. I'm their hero.

I turn back to my mission, bend over and reach my hand into the water. My fingers close around the sought after prize and I bring it to the surface. I'm speechless. There's no words for what I've retrieved from the icy depths of a Frankston beach late on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Intrepid Beach Explorer Mummy, her jeans soaking wet to the knees in freezing cold water on the third day of winter, turns back to her adoring children and holds out the treasure.

A plastic lid off a McDonalds drink.

Arachnid a la Plughole

There’s been a rather a large T4 roaming the walls of the bathroom the last few days, doing the usual disappearing act during the day. No one's overly concerned but we know the day is coming when it’s got to be killed.

We’ve all just gone to bed when my sister comes in to inform me that the T4 is out of hiding for the night. I go to have a look. It's in a pretty convenient killing location so I ask if she's up to it. The boy housemate is pathetically sick in bed, so he's of no use. After discussing a plan of action we decide to spray it with bug spray 'til it drops to the floor, then put a container over it ‘til morning, and the boy housemate can do the removal and disposal. Easy fool-proof plan. NOT.

I spray, it drops to the bench, runs across and falls in the sink. Ok, time to revise our plan. And quickly. My sister says, "You keep spraying, keep it at the plug hole and I’ll turn on the hot water tap. We’ll cook the bastard and it’ll go down the plug hole." Seems like a good plan. And it really is a good plan, except it's a bit too big to fit. But never mind, we’ll just keep the hot water tap running and boil the jug. Maybe, if we use boiling water it’ll like, melt a bit and go down. No, that doesn’t work. My sister disappears, I keep pouring water out of the container over the spider.

My sister reappears with bleach. Maybe we can melt it with bleach ? No, bleach doesn’t make spiders melt either. We go to the junk cupboard to see if we can find any other chemicals. Maybe kerosene would do the trick ? My sister is worried that the combination of bleach and kero is going to cause an explosion or noxious gases. So just as I pour a capful over the T4 she utters a little, "Bang". Not a great big loud "Bang" that would scare the shit out of me, just a little almost monotone "Bang". Then a hair drops on her arm and she screams. We’re pretty wound up. Needless to say, there's no chemical reaction and the kero doesn’t melt the spider. We’re running out of ideas. At the same moment we spy the ventolin puffer on the bench. Hmmmm, wonder what would happen if we sprayed it with ventolin ? Ok, so we’re getting out of control now.

Maybe if we just drop the container over it ‘til morning ? But no, there's gaps, and what if, just what if the T4 isn’t really dead and it escapes ? On further examination of the T4 we notice that the head has broken away from the body and, well, there’s no nice way of saying it. Guts have spilled out and like an egg sticks to a fry pan, the guts have cooked and stuck onto the plug hole. We’re feeling a bit sickie now. In fact, I still feel sickie as I write this. (In fact, I still feel sickie every time I re-read this.)

We’re going to have to scrape it off the plug hole and push it down. Correction, my sister is gonna have to scrap it off and push it down. She’s the brave one. We need new equipment for this. A scrunched up paper towel and a chop stick are selected. The paper towel is laid over the T4 so she can’t see what she’s doing but as she’s poking and prodding she’s uttering, "Oh gross, I just heard a crunch, oh gross, another crunch, oh gross…. " But she’s really brave and gets the job done.

Now we have to make sure that we wash the T4 way down past the U bend in the drain pipe. 'Cause like, what if it’s still not dead and crawls back up? We manouver the plug into the plug hole with the chopstick and fill the sink with hot water, then pull the plug. We peer cautiously down the plug hole, nup, can’t see the T4. I resist the urge to get a torch to shine down the plug hole. Satisfied with yet another magnificent, not to mention brave T4 extermination, we wander off to bed.

(T4 = Terminator 4 = Very BIG huntman spider)

T4

(T4 = Terminator 4)

My sister is pretty excited. She’s roughly 20 months pregnant and she’s showing me through her new house that she’s moving into in the next couple of days. "Here’s the loungeroom, you’ve gotta love the green carpet, I reckon we just mow it instead of vacuuming, here’s my room, look, it’s got a walk in robe and ensuite, here’s the kitchen, here’s the dining room, come through this bedroom, I’ll show you the back room. It’s huge. It’s got heaps of windows, and the clothes line out the back isn’t broken! Hang on, I’ll just open these blinds so you can see …. " At which point this ginormous huntsman goes running up the window just centimetres from her fingers. She lets out a blood curdling scream, jumps three feet in the air and almost gives birth right then and there. OK, so I let out a bit of a scream too. My daughter just stands there looking at us as if to say, "What’s the problem?"

The problem is this, we can’t possibly leave the house with the T4 still alive, having the run of the house, just waiting to attack everyone in their sleep. It has to be killed. Next problem, no spider killing tools in the house yet, as it's still empty. We improvise and find a very long stick outside, two kiddie beach balls from the back of the car and two phone books. We have a plan.

My sister, being the bravest one, starts by opening the blinds so we can more or less see the T4. Then we ready ourselves with our equipment. Again, because my sister is the bravest one, she gets the stick, I get the beach balls and my daughter gets the phone books. We're not sure what we need the phone books for but we figure they're a good idea. So armed with our weapons we commence the spider killing. The brave one starts poking at the T4, with the purpose of luring it out of it’s hidey hole so that I can throw the beach balls at it. Stupid plan, I know. All it really does is get the T4 pissed off big time and make us scream like girls every time it moves. When we aren’t busy screaming we can hear this thing hissing at us.

Eventually the T4 drops to the floor (mega girly screams accompany this event) and starts running straight at me! You know that awful pissed off spider kind of running when they run across carpet. I call it stilt running. I’m not the brave one so I freeze and just watch this T4 getting closer and closer and my sister's screaming at me, "Chuck the balls at it, chuck the balls at it," so I do. But my ball skills are as good as my bravery skills and I miss both times. I’m still frozen to the spot, the gap between me and the T4 getting shorter and shorter and now she's screaming at me, "Drop the phone books on it, drop the phone books on it." Ah, that’s why we have the phone books. My daughter begins shoving the phone books at me, so I take one and come to the realisation that in order to drop a phone book on the T4 I’m gonna have to be standing practically right over it. My brave moment hasn’t arrived yet so I stay frozen where I am and wait for the spider to come to me. Still there’s the, "Drop the phone books on it, drop the phone books on it," amid yet more girlie screams all 'round. Finally the T4 is right at my feet and my brave moment arrives. No, it's not a brave moment at all, it's more like blind fear that this thing is going to actually touch me if I don’t do something, so I drop the first phone book on it, then the second phone book.

Triumph! Have you ever seen a very pregnant woman jump and dance on top of two phone books? It’s a treat. Really.

So we go out to the kitchen all puffed up with pride at our spider killing skills and write a note to the other housemates to warn them about the 'dead' T4 under the phone books in the back room and could the boy housemate please do the removal and disposal. We're a bit too squishy to do that part.

I get a phone call two days later from my sister telling me that the other housemates had gone to the house, read the note, gone down to the back room, removed the phone books and found the T4 squashed into the carpet. They'd left it like that with the intention of removing and disposing later on after they’d done a few things. So a little bit of time goes by and the boy housemate is standing next to the T4 when the bloody thing jumps up, runs over his foot, streaks across the floor and up the wall! This thing had been under the phone books, the phone books that a pregnant woman had jumped and danced on, for two days. It had left an imprint of itself in the carpet, yet didn’t die.

The boy housemate caught the T4 and put it outside into the garden. I would have put it into the garden too ... the garden of a house on the other side of town.

On Play School Concerts

Picture this:

 

Two girls, sitting cross-legged on the floor, very near the front row of a Play School concert. The show starts and one excitedly nudges the other one, "Look look, it's Angela, I love Angela." Then David comes out. More excited nudging, "Oh, look, it's David, he's my favourite." The two girls happily sing the Play School song together with big stupid grins on their faces. Then Angela goes over to one of the big boxes on the stage and says, "I wonder who could be in this box?". One girl turns to the other and barely manages to keep her voice to a whisper, "It's Big Ted! It's Big Ted!" the other girl sadly shakes her head and says, "No, Big Ted is gone, they've got Morris now."  The two girls look a little forlorn for a second or two, until, out of the box comes Big Ted afterall. All is well in the world. They know all the words to 'Rock-a-bye your Bear'. Then out of the next big box comes Humpty! They sing Humpty Dumpty and await eagerly to see who's going to come out of the next big box.  It's Jemima! Oh, these girls are having the time of their life. They sing along with 'Miss Polly Had a Dolly' and then sit forward in anticipation of the next toy to come out of the last big box. It's Fergus the Frog!  Oh goodness, the girls are grabbing at each other, they're so excited they're beside themselves. "I hope they're gonna sing 'Daglumph Goes The Little Green Frog', that's my favourite song," they're almost squealing.

 

You're picturing a couple of three or four year old kids huh? Nope. What we have here is my sister and I at a Play School concert.