Family and Friends

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Nuclear Missile Launch Codes

3 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Yeah, I’ve had that in my head all day, for no good reason, so I thought it’d be a blog title.

Two days ago my Dad was asked by head office to do a stocktake in a store about 6 hours drive away. To get out of having to do it, he decided to take holidays. This will be the first extended time away from the store since they got here a year and some many months ago.

When my parents decide to do something they like to do it fast, so last night I found both of them here in my office room, where they (actually I, with their supervision) managed to get some frequent flyer tickets. That was the quick and easy part, it turns out. The longer part was finding accommodation. After one hour, I was beginning to crack under the pressure of trying to find something reasonably priced with air conditioning. My Mum was lying on the floor trying not to fall asleep, and Dad was at my shoulder, pointing, reading, and complaining that I scroll too fast for him and that things he wanted to read kept vanishing off the screen. I believe it was another half hour of hell before I found something but I can’t be sure, I blocked a lot of it out.. then the computer would not book, and I freaked out and had a meltdown. The Other Half had to come in and save the day.

They leave on Thursday for 6 nights. I am hoping I can talk the other half into driving them down there, and we can visit… the place I love and adore… actually two places I love and adore.. Lone Star, and Ikea. I might finally manage to drag my Mother into Ikea after at least six months of trying to get her to go there. If I achieve this feat I can truly be known as a miracle worker. She won’t have anything to do all day while Dad has a business meeting, so there’s a good chance I can swing it.. ;) It will cost them a mint to put the car into long term parking. They can catch the shuttle bus back here when they get back. All signs point to YES. And now she’s seen the catalog, she actually *wants* to go there.. yay!

family, IKEA

A delicate area

2 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

How does one tell one’s mother that her cooking is making one ill?

I’ve mentioned before that I am a germophobe, you know this. My mother is *not*. My mother never did year 12 catering at school, where they take a black light and show you how many germs are on your hands, then they tell you to go and wash them, then they show you again with the blacklight and you can see the spots you missed. My mother has no care whether chopping boards are clean, whether things are kept properly in the fridge, and my God, the woman uses tea towels instead of paper towels to wipe her hands. I must be adopted or something.

I ate there Friday evening, and was so ill for the next 24 hours, I do not even want to go into the details. Unfortunately this is not the first time this has occurred. Suffice it to say that the experience has me thinking I have to say something, or else avoid eating there all together. She will be very offended, this I know. She gets pissy at me enough about my germophobia, she says “Well you survived it for the first 20 years of your life”. I don’t like to mention that one of the ways I survived it was sneaking out to the kitchen in the middle of the night and madly cleaning everything I could find.

family, germophobe

Stunned.

3 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

You would not believe my Dad.

We went to the pub tonight for the usual meat raffle night. When the other half and I got there Dad’s standing out the front and he says “I can’t get any money out of the ATM, Mum’s put it in the wrong account or something”. So he was standing there waiting for her to go online and transfer it to the right place with the atm slip in his hand – it says insufficient funds, and he’s got the sad face on. “I can’t even get a beer”. The other half gets him a beer, he goes and tries the machine again, he can’t get anything. Mum sent $20 over with the Tamworth boys because that’s all she had on her.

At the end of the meat raffling you put your membership number (or name) on the back of your raffle ticket and then it goes into a barrel and they draw out a number, you win a $20 voucher.

So somewhat prematurely, and because the boys from Tamworth were there and he was explaining how that worked to them, Dad pulls out his membership card and puts his number on the back of their raffle tickets. Then he goes away and starts winning money on the pokies.

I’m sitting there drinking coffee and watching the meat raffle, we win one, then another meat tray. Then they do a membership draw, which is basically all the members numbers and if you’re in the club you win it. The number pops up and it looks familiar, so I look at the back of the tickets Dad wrote on, and it’s his! I jump up to go tell him, he’s in the middle of getting $180 that he won on the poker machine. He goes over and he shows them his card, and that’s $1,600 and change right there.

He takes $10 of the $180 and wins another $130, and while he’s waiting for the attendant to pay the credit then he hears his membership number called out again – he’s also won the $20 voucher he put his number on the back of the tickets for.

He never did manage to get any money out of the ATM, and now he certainly does not need to!

He is always most likely to win. ;)

Aussie Culture, country life, family, pokie machines, yay

De-Lurk

7 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Sephy mentioned this today. Apparently it’s de-lurking week, when you take the time and stop by the folks you read in your Google Reader or Bloglines, and say hi. So say hi today :) I’ll have about 117 Hi’s to say, I’ll try to do it by the end of the week. hehe

I managed to stop (for now) at 6 episodes. It’s like a drug, people. I’m hooked.

I spoke with Anna Falactic about The West Wing a little while ago. I do think it is easier for a non-American to watch, because there’s a big distance between me and your politics. I really don’t know what the difference between a Democrat and a Republican is over there. But I don’t think The West Wing is so much about American Politics as it is about the people involved in the process. And I really like the characters.

Blog Friends, blog housekeeping, de-lurk, The West Wing

Strawberry Madness

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Well it’s not Christmas without strawberries in my opinion, so I was looking everywhere for the darned things. All the local grocery stores had them but I would not buy them – they were all yukky and some were even *mouldy!* Eew!

So I said to my Mother the night before that we should go to the Organic Grocery in a town about a 20 minute drive away (coincidentally where my PO box is and where the best pies on the planet are) and she said ok, be ready at midday. Well my sleep patterns were as usual all messed up, and I got into bed about 7am which gave me about 4 hours sleep before I had to get up, and even though I was really tired, I got up with the assistance of Lukas Rossi singing to me.

So I got dressed, walked down the street to the parents house, nobody there. Not even a mouse. So I turned on the TV and waited, and they showed up about an hour later, and then Mum was all “I didn’t say we’d go, I didn’t say midday” and she didn’t want to go but I talked her into it, so she decided we would try another place here in town before we went driving “all that way” (16kms) to the other town!

This from a woman who used to whinge about driving from one side of Tamworth to the other, when Tamworth is half the size of this place. It’s to be expected.

We ended up at this place in town we’d never been to before and I am soooo thankful because not only did they have great, non-mouldy strawberries (which I have a desire to go and eat the whole punnet right now but resist I must) but their other fruit and veg was incredible. I even got cherries, all perfectly the same ripeness. YAY!

Now I just have to make sure she’ll keep going back there, because I am soooo tired of crappy fruit and veg from supermarkets..

Aussie Culture, country life, family, food

Chinese Appointment

2 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Every week, I seem to be in charge of making the appointment for Saturday Night Chinese. This could be because it is the only telephone number I have memorised here. Back in Adelaide I used to have a lot of numbers in my head, but here I need only this one. It’s at this restaurant which has a beautiful view over the Shoalhaven river, and it’s about a 15km drive from our house, down a road past lots of cows that I say hi to, when it’s daylight saving. When it’s not, it’s dark, and you can’t even tell the cows are out there. :(

It’s at an RSL club that we belong to, they have a bar, pokies, and the restaurant. I never seem to win on the pokies much anymore except last week I accidentally bet a lot more than I thought I was betting, and won $20 in one shot.

We’ve been to the *other* club three times this week, Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. They’ve been having these meat raffles with hams and turkeys and roast porks to win. So far we have two hams, one roast pork, no turkey, and two meat trays. On Sunday we went to the other club, won a ham and a pork, then went to the Chinese club for dinner because we missed it on Saturday and won a meat tray there too.

Soon it’s the special Christmas raffle day at the *other* club, they are raffling off a whole bunch of things, every time you buy a meat raffle ticket or a coffee you get another ticket. I have the winning one here. :) shh don’t tell anyone..

But on Wednesday night, we did not win a single meat tray. It was depressing. At the end of the raffle you write your name and member number on the back and it goes into a draw for a voucher, and I won that instead! w00t $20 ;)

Well I off to get ready for the Chinese.. ;)

About Snoskred, Aussie Culture, family

Aunties are nuts.

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My 11 year old nephew is too old to give kisses to his auntie anymore. He’s settling for thinking I am loopy instead. Auntie makes up her own words, and she has crazy sayings that she says far too often.

He bought a game today and he was explaining it to me. He told me it had a squirrel as the main character. I said “Everybody loves squirrels” and he said “I’m going to have to agree with you on that one” ;) Normally he argues with me when I make “everybody loves” type statements. How cute!

We’re off for a chinese dinner, and then I’ll be back to read what all my fellow bloggers have been up to ;) I bought plates, and shoes which are sparkly, yay!

family, things to remember

This movie may come to you as a surprise..

7 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

The other half and I don’t have the same taste in movies at all. I like to watch movies with him from time to time but it’s a big exercise in compromise for the most part. I have no desire to spend a couple of hours watching cartoons (ie anime) and most of the stuff he likes I just can’t stand. And vice versa. So tonight it came to me as a great surprise that a movie he chose turned out to be utterly fantastic – Gattaca.

I have never understood all the fuss about Jude Law, but I do now. Ethan Hawke was as always incredible. Uma Thurman was gorgeous and tall. The surprise for me was Loren Dean – who I recognised from somewhere but could not put my finger on where from – he played John Aaron in Apollo 13, one of my favourite movies. If you have not seen Gattaca, make sure to check it out. I really enjoyed it.

Oh, you remember the 10 things about me we did a while back? Sephy, I’m Not Craig, Ms Batville, Watershedd (with two d’s) and me all did it, and now Meva who has just returned from two weeks of snorkelling has done it too.. :)

If you are reading this and you are not one of the above named people, consider yourself obliged to post 10 things we don’t know about you, and then say you did it in the comments here. I’ll link to you. And for the NaBloPoMo people, this gives you something to blog about tomorrow/today!

Blog Friends, challenges, movies

I got some email..

5 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

A scammer I am baiting sent me some photos. I’ve posted them on the scambaiter blog. You can see them here but be warned, he’s in his underwear.

Speaking of half naked, when we went down to Pebbly Beach there was this chick kneeling down on the ground taking photos of the birds landing on her relatives, showing us enough of her crack that I felt like I could see what she had for breakfast. I am serious! It was a very inappropriate amount of crack to be showing. Inches and inches of crack!

My uncle says to me.. Don’t forget to post that letter… and it took me a minute or two to get what he meant, and then I could not stop laughing. And he kept going, he was saying to my parents “Have you got any letters you need posted?”

I am tempted to get a supply of small coins this summer, and anytime I see a crack I should put a coin in it, see if I can do it without the crack-shower noticing.. ;)

I’m a bit busy today so in the meantime here’s a pic of a lady (not the crack shower) being attacked by birds at Pebbly Beach..

birdz.0

family, funny, New South Wales