[14:00] mizchalmers: remember that time we got married?
[14:00] FurHordinge: oh yeah, that time
[14:00] FurHordinge: happy anniversary of that time
[14:00] mizchalmers: back atcha
[14:00] mizchalmers: mister
[14:00] FurHordinge: missus

Francis: I hear that Sausage Day is a new holiday
Yatima: a celebration of all things sausage
Francis: I assumed it was a post-Valentine’s celebration of all things not very romantic or not involving any special effort
Yatima: i laugh every time i think about it
a lone sausage
Francis: as I was IMing to Rose about it:
[12:33] francis heaney: “Here, I bought you a Hershey bar. It was on sale.”
[12:34] francis heaney: “I ate half of it already.”
Yatima: “happy sausage day!”
funny you should mention it
jeremy got given free hershey’s bars, the little ones, and keeps offering them to me
i’m all “hersheys? …thanks, pet”
Francis: I’m actually addicted to the tiny Special Darks
Yatima: i eat michael recchiuti
and scharffen berger
when i settle, i settle for lindt
Francis: I only eat chocolates that were hand delivered to me from Germany
Yatima: gigantic, unashamed chocolate snob
germany? bah
the chocolate baths on venus, or nothing
Francis: MY chocolate comes from ATLANTIS
Yatima: MY chocolate comes from the civilization that DROWNED atlantis for its inferior choc
you can’t buy this chocolate
Francis: it is transported from the future and is made of special cocoa-treated stem cells
Yatima: you have to donate your menstrual blood
for the stem cells
HA
beat that, sausage
Francis: *hard to breathe*
*too much laughing*
also here is the Sausage Day Gift of the Magi:
Yatima: i sold the corkscrew to get you a tin of cat food, but you sold the tin opener to get me a bottle of two buck chuck

American Kookaburra

I’ve been volunteering at Claire’s school on Friday afternoons, and have somehow earned a reputation as the lady who makes the kookaburra sound. Seeking to outsource the love, I said “Who here watches American Idol?” and pulled Abraham, Sarah and Ivy up the front to do their versions of the laughing jackass. Sarah won narrowly, seven votes to the others’ six and six.

My Bloody Valentine

Lemming-like behaviour on the part of the USonians never fails to drive me batshit. Valentine’s Day is an excellent example. All I ask of a Saturday evening is inexpensive childcare, a passable flick and a bowl of noodles with my sweetie. This week the Kabuki annex parking lot was full, meaning I had to park in the main garage! Our seats were not ideal! The film, Slumdog Millionaire, was pretty great, but then we had to wait almost five minutes for a table at a nearby noodlery! The trouble with Valentine’s Day is everyone else trying to shoehorn in on my regular Saturday night, and getting in my way!

This is, I have been assured, a very First World problem to have.

The Feast of the Lonely Sausage

Jeremy was in charge of making a hot lunch today. He presented us with – a single hot sausage. No vegetable, no bread. Just sausage. It was, as he pointed out, very good sausage. Kathy was reminded of the time she was served pizza on the head of a pin. Francis made the point that no one could mistake the gender of the preparer of this meal, not for one single second. I propose making February 15 an annual Feast of the Sausage. As it’s also Fraser’s birthday, the choice of anthem is a no-brainer.

Fluffy the Seagull the Horse the Bicycle

This is my foldie, named for Julia’s pet horse Fluffy the Seagull the Horse, who is named for Julia’s seagull, Fluffy. I rode Fluffy the Seagull the Horse the Bicycle back from her safety service at Valencia Cyclery this evening, in the rain, and raced the 14 Mission up the hill. And I won. This crazy scheme just might work after all…

Public Service Announcement

In the wake of Race Fail 2009 I’ve joined the 50 Books by People of Colour LJ community and will be posting there from time to time. So far the project has been amazing, making me feel like I read fiction for a reason again, and to learn things I couldn’t possibly figure out for myself.

Fitzchalmers family shoot 09

Originally uploaded by quinnums

Thanks Q!

Run.
Write.
Listen.
Be kind to Jeremy and the girls.
Be cheerful and competent at work.
Have dates with my girlfriends.
Count my blessings.

As this year winds to its ignominious conclusion, I am defiantly focused on the things in my life that I am happy about. These include but are not limited to Claire, growing like a weed, gap-toothed, volatile, brilliant and charming; Julia, rose-lipped, wide-eyed, white-haired and implacable. Jeremy, muscular from wushu and still as funny and even-tempered as ever, continues to put up with me despite my cranky shenanigans. Australia is beautiful, my favourite beach golden and opal, the air full of sunshine and birdsong. Mangoes here smell like childhood and hope.

We still have all four of the childrens’ grandparents, and fine grandparents they are too. All siblings are likewise present and accounted for, and most are happily pair-bonded to boot. My niece and nephew Kelly and Ross are delightful and intelligent and obviously closely related to my own daughters. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is a bit wet, but he’s no John Howard, and for this we are all extremely grateful. Similarly Obama, while under more pressure than any one man should have to bear, has shown an enviable track record of steely nerves, and his cabinet appointments are thoughtful and encouraging.

The world is full of books to read and films to watch, meals to make and eat, music to hear and play, science museums to explore, valleys and forests and mountains and beaches to hike and camp at and loll upon. I’m glad there is a Kiva.org and a Human Rights Watch and a Medicins Sans Frontieres, a St Luke’s Hospital and a Monroe Elementary School. The same Pacific washes Sydney and San Francisco. The same tide that washes my past away carries me forward into my childrens’ future.

J: There are birthday presents for Claire, and supplementary presents for Julia so she doesn’t get jealous.

R: What if Claire gets jealous of Jules not getting jealous? It’s so hard to keep it fair! What was I thinking having a baby on Christmas Day? Why didn’t anyone warn me?

J: There should be books. Although the obvious authority is useless.

R: “I did what it said in the Bible!”

Lucky MT lets me back-date ’em…

Am in possession of one (1) husband. He seems intact. He’s all epiphany-licious and wants to Seize The Day. I’m all After the election, buster.

“It’s what I was saying the other day – being with you is like solitude, only better -”

“Loneliness: now with more people!”

“You know a sensitive husband would totally understand what I am saying, and be touched by it -”

“I’m like nobody, only more so!”

“You’re just digging a hole for yourelf.”

“The Well of Loneliness?”

“The well of loneliness-only-better.”

I come home from a run to find an audience of toys on the sofa. I join them for the cabaret!

Miss Claire Fitzhardinge, “I like to laugh”

I like to laugh, I like to laugh
because I am a kookaburra!
If you see a laughing bird, that is a kookaburra!
If you see a laughing jaguar, that is a kookaburra jaguar!
If you see a laughing person, that is a person who is funny sometimes.
If you see a laughing oyster, that is a kookaburra oyster!
If you see a flying jaguar, that is an eagle jaguar!
If you see a flying cat, that is an eagle cat!

Miss Julia Fitzhardinge, “I am a princess”

(Sweetly) I am a princess
That is all.

Mr Jeremy Fitzhardinge, “Slugs and winter”

Slugs hate the winter because they get frozen.

(Claire: Not slugs and winter. Sleds and winter.

Jeremy: Oh!)

Mr Jeremy Fitzhardinge, “Sleds and winter”

Sleds don’t like the winter because they have to do all the work.
They like the summer because then they can sit in the shed and think
Mmm, it’s warm!
And when a man gets old and remembers his sled, he says
“Rosebud!”

Entire cast, “Sleds and winter” reprise

Rosebud!
Ro-o-ose bu-u-u-d!
Rose BUUUUUUD!

Curtain.

“Oh Julia.”

“What has she done?”

“She’s dropped the keys through the hole into the DVD cabinet. And it’s locked.”

“Oh. Crap.”

“Yeah.”

“Can we hook it out?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll get a coathanger.”

“Too stiff. There aren’t enough degrees of freedom.”

“Sure there are. Let me try.”

“No I’ll do it.”

“Huh. It’s not going to come up that way.”

“I wonder if we can get it through this slot?”

“No way, the keys are too thick. Do we have a magnet?”

“No. How about if I go through here and lift it up to you?”

“That might work. There you go. Steady…”

“Ready?”

“Got it!”

(The keys are now hanging off a bulldog clip that is too big to go through the hole. What we should have done in the first place.)

R: I know this is very nerdy, but I love the end of Diaspora where the Yatima character is relieved that there aren’t going to be any more adventures, so it can get on with teaching itself maths. That’s what I want to do when the girls are off to college. Learn maths properly.

J: Yeah, we can do it together.

LATER the same evening they watch a DOCUMENTARY, in which rutting UNGULATES SMEAR themselves with mud.

J: Would you respect me more if I smeared myself with mud?

R: Lasts forever.

J: I read Overclocked.

R: Mmm?

J: Really liked it except for one story.

R: “When Sysadmins.”

J: Exactly.

R: I had to stop reading it after the baby died.

In unison: I wonder if he could write it now?

LATER. In a tacqueria. There are TACOS. R beats J for no apparent reason.

J: Ow.

R: My ovaries hurt.

J: And?

R: It’s your fault.

J: How?

R: You are the patriarchy. If it weren’t for you we’d all be living in the woods in a big happy lesbian commune, and my ovaries wouldn’t hurt. Isn’t that right, Jamey?

Jamey: Your ovaries would still hurt, but we’d have a drum circle about it.

WE ALL start to DRUM on the tacqueria table. JULIA stares for a moment, then DANCES.

The scariest, funniest, most heartbreaking, most romantic Doctor Who episode ever.

R: I swear sometimes I think that cat moves when I close my eyes.

J: Don’t be silly.

R: No, look, bite marks!