If You Have A Friend Who Is Always Late

I'm going to start this off by stating upfront that I am that friend.

I am late to lots of things.

Some of it is due to optimism about how long the trip (and any tasks I need to perform before it) will take.

Some of it is due to being easily distracted.

Some of it is due to the fact that I would really rather be doing the thing I'm doing than the thing I'm supposed to be doing (eg, reading my book instead of going to a social gathering predominantly peopled with a bunch of folk I only tangentially know).


The point is this.

If you react with surprise, jokes, or sarcasm any time I turn up on time or early, I will stop trying to.

I will straight up give up on turning up on time because it's not worth the hassle.

I am already struggling against my natural tendency to think that the drive will be smooth and my low-level anxiety that I've left something important behind or might have forgotten the address.

If you add in making a big deal of any time I successfully combat and defeat these obstacles like I'm a sabre-tooth tiger that has spontaneously announced that actually it's a vegan, that's not helping.

I have years of trying to break this shitty habit behind me, years of that little voice whispering 'you're going to be late anyway, why put yourself through this stress?', and every time I manage to push past it in my attempt to be 'not that guy' everyone rewards me by pointing out that this is out of character because I am 'that guy'.

If you have a friend who is always late here is my advice:

• If they turn up on time or early just act pleased to see them.Seriously. You have no idea how useful this would be and how far it would go towards helping reinforce this behaviour and letting them break their habit. Try not to act surprised if you can but if your eyebrows go up anyway just keep the urge to comment on their earliness locked inside. Making people feel self-conscious is not helpful.
  The only circumstance that this wouldn't be good advice is if your friend thrives on attention and lavishing them with praise will ping the 'reward' button in their brain.
• Give them something to do.
  This may not be universal but if you give me a task which will help you then I am so much more likely to turn up on time. Ask me to get the ice for the BBQ and I will be there before the drinks have time to get warm.
• Do NOT tell them a different time to everyone else.If you tell me that the party is at 6pm and it turns out I manage to turn up at 6pm to find you going 'oh wow, the party isn't until 6:30pm/7pm, I just said 6pm so you'd turn up on time' I will not only feel embarrassed I will be pissed off.
  If you tell me 6pm for a party that's actually at 6:30pm and I turn up at 6:30pm and you tell everyone there what you did and they all have a jolly laugh about it I will not only be embarrassed I will be fucking furious. And I will actively start turning up later to things you host. Instead of being half an hour late due to bad time management I will probably be an hour late due to bad time management and also spite because fuck you.
• Do not just sound resigned when they apologise.I know this one is hard because if someone is always apologising for something but they keep doing it, you get over it after a certain point. But just like calling attention to the fact that someone has turned up early reinforces the idea that their habit is a given, going 'yeah, we know, we're used to it' confirms that this is the way everyone sees them and that trying to change themselves could conceivably lead to everyone still acting surprised every single time they turn up on time for years into the future so why bother?
  If the apologising drives you crazy just have a private conversation with them at some point and say 'Look, you're late to a lot of stuff and I know you aren't doing it to be a dick but apologising every time doesn't make either of us feel better. If you're working on it that's great but for now how about just stop apologising.' I can't guarantee that conversation will go smoothly, it could be hella awkward but the thing about apologies is they're supposed to be for isolated incidences, they're supposed to indicate you regret your behaviour and you'll strive to change it in the future. If you just use apologies like bandaids instead of trying to fix the problem you might as well stop apologising and just own the fact that you're routinely late.
• Don't be passive/aggressive about it.If you can't look someone directly in the eye and say 'it really hurt my feelings that you were late' or 'It's really important to me that you're on time for this one' then don't be passive-aggressive about it instead because passive-aggression has solved very little in the history of humanity. If you've told them it's important and they're still late, then tell them you're disappointed, they need to know. If you can't be honest about these things then your friendship will deteriorate.
• Don't baby them.Being late is a shitty annoying habit. I am not going to beat about the bush, it is goddamn annoying.
  It's annoying when people do it to you, it is bloody frustrating as hell when you do it to other people.
  But the point is this: a person who is always late to shit is a grown up who is managing their time poorly, they are not - unless they've experienced a brain injury or are neurodiverse* - like this for a special reason that requires you to tip toe around them.
  Yelling at them or being a shit-hole to them won't change their behaviour any more than it makes fat people thin or smokers quit but ignoring the problem or their behaviour won't do them or you any favours.

In summary, don't be a dick or a doormat.

You as the friend of a perennially late person deserve the respect and consideration that them doing their level best to turn up on time entails and they deserve the chance to change their shitty habit without being made to feel like they're a freakshow attraction every time they put the effort in.




Disclaimer: My lateness tends to be situation specific.
If it's something to do with an appointment (eg, the doctor or a dinner reservation) I will turn up just before, just on time or a handful of minutes late.
If it's something to do with a flight or a train or a museum exhibition that has a timed entry I will be aggressively early because the idea of missing my flight/train/museum time is hella stressful.
If it's something that is being held at someone's house and is probably going to run all day, I will probably be late.


*In this situation neurodiversity would refer to someone who has a neurological condition that makes telling time or keeping track of the passage of time difficult, or alternatively someone who experiences anxiety or OCD or another condition that would make it difficult to be on time/leave the house/be keen to interact socially comfortably.

The Russian Bride

I went to a party on the 31st of May and I am still in shock.

Not because the party went off like something you read about in the papers and tut tut when they talk about it on the radio.

The party was for a friend's birthday and she decided to have a 1950s theme so we all turned up dressed appropriately, faces and hair gussied up, made cocktails, ate edible versions of tragic 1950s party nibbles and enjoyed some period appropriate music until everyone got drunk enough to put on Amon Amarth, Puscifer, Tool and Korpiklaani.

The thing that shocked me is that one of her friends who had casually mentioned he'd be bringing a guest, turned up with a lovely young girl who essentially seems to be a Russian mail order bride.

He had told literally no-one that she existed.

He hadn't said he'd met anyone online, that someone was moving in with him or that he had suddenly turned into the kind of guy who tells his friends that his girlfriend* isn't allowed to drink because he's told her she's driving...

He's closer to 40 than not, she looks like she's around 20 and speaks English with hesitation.

She didn't seem cowed or shy exactly but she wasn't actively engaging in conversation, rather responding when asked and content to stand around and observe otherwise.

He didn't hover over her like a hawk all night but him swanning off to talk to other people and leaving THE GIRL NOBODY KNEW EXISTED who doesn't speak very good English with a bunch of loud, tipsy strangers isn't much better behaviour.

I had actually seen him down the supermarket with her once a couple of months before, said G'day in passing, gotten a Hello back from him and a smile from her and wandered on thinking 'I guess he's got a girlfriend?'
If it hadn't have been for that encounter absolutely nobody would have any idea how long she'd been in the country.
And that's just when I saw her.
For all we know she's been here since his last visit to Russia** and he just hasn't seen fit to mention it.
The last visit to Russia that we know about was late last year, in case you were wondering.
What if she's been here this whole time?
Just... sitting about his house...

The thing is he's always been shit at sharing news.
You find out he's due to have knee surgery a week or two before it happens because he makes a throw away comment about taking time off work.
You find out he's going overseas because he says something about a VISA.
But moving a human being from one country to another and possibly having to sponsor them legally?
And moving them to a shitty country town with nothing going on, and not introducing them to your friends*** so she possibly has no social circle?

The friend whose party it was thinks he said she's over here teaching Russian but I don't know where or to whom or even if this is an accurate recollection as the problem with 1950s cocktails is that the party started at 6pm and everyone was stinko by 8:30pm.
Luckily they slowed down, eased off to lighter mix drinks and didn't wreck themselves but there were a lot of lapsed memories that evening.

It is a very weird situation to find yourself in.

He was acting as if nothing was wrong but getting a bit stubborn if anyone asked him why he wouldn't let her drink.
Her English is functional but not very complex and if he's the only person she knows, she mightn't be willing to risk getting him offside if we start asking her if she's OK or happy.

Maybe they're having a perfectly good time together, it's hard to say, but the situation seems creepy.

So I guess now we know she exists we'll have to try and work out what the hell is going on, who she is to him and make sure he's treating her right.

I can imagine wanting to start a life in a new country and being willing to shack up with somebody to make it happen but moving to a small town in central Victoria and spending most of your time in the house of a man who barely talks doesn't seem like a great reward for your bravery.
Better than actual abuse - which we don't think is going on - but yeah, not the cream of the crop of promised lands.

He's always been a bit NQR in some social situations but even people who have known him since high school are stunned.

And so now we're questioning everything we know about him.

So now that we know those who know him best are going to try and get the two of them to come to more days/nights out, get to know her better and ask him what precisely the deal is before we all die of curiosity or start stalking them around the place to make sure she's OK.

Because she's a total sweetie and we would throw him over in an instant if we thought he was treating her badly.



*We assume, for all we know they're married...

**He's been two or three times and had never really said much about the trips even when pressed and now we're worried we know why.

***Or family? We have no idea if he's told his family...

The Guardian

[This is a backdated post] 

Wow.

Well this is timely after last week's post.

My friend Awesome rang me up recently and said she had something big to ask me.

Seeing as she's already married to her fella and has a 2 year old with him I was pretty sure it wasn't a proposal.

What it was though was this:

Would I be willing to be made the guardian of their child in the event that they both died?

Wow.

Taking into account this would only come about in the unlikely and really horrible event that they both got knocked out of the picture I had to consider the idea seriously because if I didn't look at it as if it were something that might one day happen I wouldn't be making the decision based on useful ideas.

He's a pretty awesome little dude and I definitely would want to make sure he was taken care of.

So it was time to run through the basic list.

Would I be willing and ready to:

• make the space in my home?
• make the time in my life?
• make sure he got a proper education?
• look after him when he was sick?
• support him trying out sports and hobbies?
• teach him the stuff he needs to know to get on?
• make sure he didn't grow up to be an ass?
• go through all the uncertainty and terror and heartbreak that whole package would bring?

Essentially the answer was 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhaaaaaarrghhghghghhhgh yes'.

I mean sure the idea is sort of terrifying, not only because it would only come to pass if something really awful happened, because getting catapulted into parenthood without getting to go through the beginner levels would leave you scrambling to catch up.

Like if someone decided to run through the development levels of a game you've never played before and then hand the controller over for the boss fight.

But like Awesome said, one of the reasons they thought of me because I have a big-ass family would support me and make sure he was OK.


So I said yes.

And then immediately started planning diet plans and exercise regimes and defensive driving courses for his parents.

Because he is a rad little dude and I want to be a part of his life for as long as I'm around.

But I also kind of like his parents and want to keep them.

So yay for the huge, touching declaration of trust in me but double-yay for the idea that it will never be necessary because his mum and dad will be there to bring him up, love him, and give him the flicks around the ear that he is sure to deserve along the way.

On The Road

[This is a backdated post] 

I've had a few different experiences with travelling with friends.

The fearless mate who convinced me to go on a working holiday in California at 19 when neither of us had travelled without adult supervision* and once responded to my concerns with 'What's the worst thing that can happen? You die and then you don't have to worry about it' which has stuck with me as a good point ever since then.

The meek mate who was happy to let me plan the travel, the accommodation, the itinerary and only chimed in if there was something in particular she did/didn't want to eat/see/miss.

The loud mates who were mostly concerned that we had a working music system, enough junk food to get us there, and - if I insisted - relevant maps n shit.

The contradictory-mix mate who is spontaneous a lot of the time but also doesn't like to stray too far from our agreed itinerary once we've nutted out a good one.

Travelling with friends can be both awesome and kind of awful.

Being out of your normal environment can let different parts of your personalities come to the surface so that you can get to know entirely different sides of each other -- kind of awesome.

But it also amplifies different habits or behaviours that you may not have been aware of or given much of a damn about before -- kind of awful.

I think when you're travelling with friends you need to sit down before you set off and make sure that you are both on the same page about what you want from the trip.

If they're expecting to party across Europe, fall in with random groups of people that seem to be having a good time, and wash up wherever the tide takes you and you're expecting to cram yourself with pastries and wander through galleries and castles then you are going to be a little bit stumped when you finally touch down at your destination.

Having different travel plans than your friends doesn't mean you can't travel with your friends, you just need to be able to communicate and not fuck up more than the amount of times you can both forgive.

If you have a friendship where you can fly over together, see the shit you're both interested in together, then visit or do the shit you alone are interested in separately, then meet up again for the next leg of the trip then that's excellent.

If you're the kind of person who doesn't like not knowing where your mate is, or alternatively the kind of person who doesn't like having to wait around for someone else to come back from what they've been doing without you, then that kind of jaunt probably isn't for you and you'll either have to make sure you pick a mate who is interested in all the same things you are or compromise and both go to a few things you couldn't give two tugs about so that neither of you misses out.

The most important thing to do is be honest with yourself and each other because otherwise you could end up in a situation where you explode at each other in a way that would be much more dramatic and entertaining that this vague

And before the trip talk to each other and establish the baseline acknowledgement that 'we're probably going to flip out at one point due to hunger/fatigue/irritation/nerves so some kind of get out of jail free card system wouldn't hurt'.

Without it I wouldn't be friends with my fearless mate because she would have put my head through a wall when I was worrying over details and how we were going to be shanked and/or shot because America.
I wouldn't be friends with my meek mate because of the time I went on a rant about her not wanting to walk with me to a particular bridge because she was tired/it was late and I was feeling a bit 'sleep when you're dead, don't waste this trip**!' and got a bit self-righteous about it**.
I wouldn't be friends with my loud mates because they are quite happy to ditch plans for what seems more fun at the time/now that we've seen where we are and what's available.

Summary: think about your expectations, talk to your mate about theirs, run your plans past each other, maybe come up with a 'bitch, you're working my last nerve' safeword for when you're out and about to head off actually having a screaming row.



*Real adults! Proper adults! We weren't actual adults at 19! I sometimes have trouble believing I'm officially an adult now.

**When you're flying between 10 and 22 hours to get to places you tend to try and cram as much into each trip as you can; this is one of the reasons why Australians can sometimes seem a bit over the top as we charge about the place. If we're already paying $$$ to get here and the trip took ### hours then we are going to make the most of it. Stay a month or two months or three rather than a two week trip, run all over the shop like a cat on nip!

***I apologised later and she gave me a bit of a mild telling off.

Roller Derby

[This is a backdated post]

A lot of things I've learned in life have come from experience but most of the really important things I've learned have come from watching the people I love get around to things before me and then having to deal with the challenges and realities that follow.

In this circumstance it was my friend Riot and her fella, The Viking, building a house.

The amount of fiddling and decision-making and revising and miscommunication and setbacks and faffing about and hold-ups and casual thoughts about murder-suicide that came up during this process has been fascinating.
And more than a little daunting.

This could all be filed under 'things you were anticipating but didn't really comprehend the importance/extent of'.

One thing I completely knocked all our socks off was how much the interior painting would have cost.
The quotes they were given ran between $12,000 and $16,000+.

What.
The.
Hell?

Factor in the cost of equipment, of running a business, man hours, paint, travel and that still suggests that painters wake up every morning on silk sheets, have some caviar on bread that has been baked in house by their personal servants and then shower in a bathroom appointed with gold and marble.

Yes, the house is of decent size but it isn't a palace, the rooms are not infinite!

So, of course Riot and The Viking decided that professional painting could go to blazes and that they'd bloody do it themselves!

House painting is one of those 'not really difficult but people are worried about futzing it up or don't have enough time to do it themselves' tasks that have spawned an industry that I'm guessing has run away with itself a bit.
Painting an established house means having to be careful of the moulding, carpet/tiling/flooring and furniture.
Painting in a house that has just been finished and hasn't had any of the carpeting or tiling put down is muuuuuuch easier.
Especially as the builders had done something wrong a little earlier and as an apology had gotten all the ceilings sealed and painted for no extra cost, so yippee! No paint dropping in our eyes as we tried to Michelangelo* the ceiling.

Riot and The Viking declared this weekend to be Painting Weekend, tempted us in with the offer of food and their eternal gratitude.
Considering their regular level of hospitality is pretty friggin' impressive I wasn't going to pass up on a lifetime warranty and also it just sounded like fun.

Picking out clothes ratty enough to paint in was easy enough sadly** and for the most part it was a time-consuming doddle.
They'd bought good quality paint, rollers, brushes and trays, worded us up on how to do this right and set us loose on the house.
The one bit that is annoying and fiddly is 'cutting in' and 'not futzing up the architraves, skirting boards and moulding'.

You'd think that rollers would be able to paint a nice straight line up to the edge of anything that has an edge but the dang things get a bit wishy washy on the edges and don't push down as hard.
The thing they do do is have little fuzzy bits at the end which will trail paint across the underside edge of the moulding that does not need to be painted!
There was a little bit of furtive wiping of surfaces with clean cloths and/or bits of our clothing as we went along but we got it done.

All the communal areas and most of the rooms were getting painted the same shade of lighty beige-y whatever - one of those colours that you can't really describe because... pale - which made the whole process easier for the volunteer army.
The two rooms that were getting fancy different colours were Riot's art room (which was getting a strong aqua colour) and their theatre room (which was getting a deep rich red because they're both mad for Twin Peaks and figure you can pull that shit off in a room that is devoted to having the lights off for most of the time you're in it).
The two fancy rooms were being done at a later date by Riot and The Viking so there was no paint segregation or hardcore roller/brush washing to be done, just a lot of repetitive movements and yelling song lyrics and insults at each other.

By the end of the second day we'd gotten all the coats done in all the parts of the house we were allowed at and could collapse in a 'why did I have to spend so much of my weekend going up and down ladders***' pile.

I think at the end of the process the lessons I learned are as follows:

• 90-95% of painting is easy as, it's the last 5% that screws you up and has you reaching for the phone book****.
• Even when you're being careful you will get paint in your hair.
• The bits you worry will be obviously imperfect you won't even be able to find a few minutes later. The bits that stand out as needing work will be areas you thought were doing fine until you caught sight of them out of the corner of your eye.
• Riot and The Viking are way less OCD than I am.
• You are never too old to enjoy wearing overalls.

*It's a verb now, deal with it!

**Note to self, time to throw out some more clothes...

***As an official shorty, standing 5'1" (155 cm) I needed the ladder more than some others!

****Or more likely your computer or smartphone because progress!

I Miss Holding Your Hand

[This is a backdated post]

I miss holding your hand.
The way that you didn't give a damn.
That it never occurred to you to care what other people thought.
That you never even paused to consider that other people might care.
I miss the casual, thoughtless closeness.
The warmth and support.
The total lack of agenda.
I miss how it was so easy for you.
How you made it easy for me.
How after a while I didn't even think about it either.
I miss the quiet times as much as the crazy times.
But most of all, I miss holding your hand.

Needlessly Philosophical

I've been thinking a little bit about the nature of internet friendships and relationships recently.

Of all the people I've 'met' since I started putting things into the internet instead of just taking things out.

Those I'm still in touch with and those who drifted away.

Those who died out in the real world and left a quiet space in the virtual world where I knew them.

Of the communities I've been a part of.

And they really are like nothing else.

All human relationships start with a small amount of information and build their way up from there.

You bump into someone on the street and you're both wearing the same band t-shirt and you might end up a part of that person's life for 10 years based on that one thing that caught your eye and that just happened to be one aspect of a person who had enough in common with you and enough diversity from you to be an awesome friend.

You bump into someone on the internet and there's some of that same initial information gathering but it happens on a slightly different scale and under different conditions.

Whether you roam the internet under a pseudonym or under your real name, with a photo avatar or a screen cap of your favourite character, you are only putting small slices of your personality online at a time.

Whether it is on Twitter, on a blog, as part of a forum community or anywhere else on the internet, it is offering parts of yourself in bite-sized chunks.

If you read something someone has written and it resonates with you, you want to read more.

If it keeps resonating with you and you don't hit a sample that reveals that they believe something that you very much definitely do not, you start to feel a connection with them even before you've exchanged any kind of communication.

Communicating with people you know exclusively online allows you to slowly build a better picture of them, though there's always some things that you'll have trouble getting a feel for without ye olde body language or facial expressions, and there's the fact that when we're presenting ourselves there are always things we push to the fore or shove to the back or simply forget about.

This doesn't mean that internet friendships are any less valid, on the contrary a lot of the internet friendships I've had have been very deep and supportive and I've said things to internet friends that I've not shared with real life meat-space friends just because our dynamic is different.

With text-based communications there are opportunities for miscommunications or personal-bias interpretations but there is also the potential for really deep exchanges.
You get the chance to think things out and lay those thoughts down in a way that they wouldn't come out if spoken.
You get to show a different side to yourself and the see the different sides of many other people.

You can learn a lot about yourself by talking with people online.
You notice habits you have, turns of phrase or tendencies that with reflection reveal things about you that you weren't even aware of.
You can become aware of biases or presumptions that you weren't even aware you held.
You can find the courage to be your online self in the real world or to share your real self in the online world.

Or you can just dick around having a good time without getting so introspective.

Losing touch with someone you only known online can be quite jarring.
If you have no way of contacting them you have no idea if they've stopped updating their website/visiting your community/commenting on photos because they're busy/have lost interest/got a romantic partner and are too busy having crazy sex all the time/forgot their password or if they might be sick or even dead.

When someone drops out of contact you keep checking back, hoping that they're OK, wondering what's up and depending on the situation you may one day find out or you may just have to accept that they're gone and move on.

Sometimes, like regular meat-space friendships, you lose contact with someone because something specific happens - like a conflict - or you finally find that bit of information that makes you realise that the two of you aren't quite as similar as you thought and things gently drift apart.

The perceptions we bring to the internet are pretty much the same ones we bring to real life.

We build a picture of a person based on the information we have and then fill in the gaps.

Depending on the person we may idealise them a bit and then have to revise as we take into account their human flaws and foibles, the same way you do in real life.

It's just easier to hang onto the you-built-version of a person for longer online and that can either facilitate the start of something else, maintain a great friendship or lead to disappointment further down the track when you realise you were wrong.

Getting to know people online is amazing.

Even when it goes wrong it can show you other parts of life and the world that you may not have seen before.

Some of it may be stuff you would rather not have seen but for most people the stuff you treasure makes all that other bullshit worth wading through.

Cancelled

With a little bit over a month until my friend's wedding we were all running about getting the last important big ticket items locked in.

Making sure we'd had our bridesmaid dresses altered, hair and make up had been scheduled, flowers had been arranged, the menu had been planned, the celebrant and photographer booked, accommodation confirmed, the usual.

Last Sunday I got a phone call which I assumed was going to be about buying our shoes or arrangements for the hen's night or something.

Turns out the wedding is off...

Huh.

Alrighty...

Huh...

I was shocked.

And then I thought about it and I wasn't.

And then I was shocked that I wasn't shocked.

So I guess my original shock was just surprise rather than having trouble wrapping my head around the fact.

They've been together for 6 years and have been fairly solid for that time but they had their problems and had never really given off that 'soul mate' vibe.
Going into a marriage you'd assume you'd want that 'I want to be with this person forever' vibe to be pretty strong or you'd wonder if it was really a good fit.

My friend seems to be taking things surprisingly well - probably another indicator that she's done the right thing - and so my main concern will be being there for her when she needs me.

Even if she's done the right thing you have to assume there will be some 'I've just come out of a 6 year relationship' emotional turbulence somewhere down the track.

Now if only I could get my brain to fully absorb this new reality and stop thinking stupid things like this:

• "I'm forgetting something... Oh, right! I still haven't picked a song to request for the receptio- Oh..."
• "Man, I had better buy my shoes pretty quickly or- Oh..."
• "I haven't got my outfit organised for the hen's ni- Right..."
• "Better remember to ask my boss for time off so I can help organise the- No, wait..."
• "I wonder if they've got all the RSVPaaahwaitasecond..."

Get this straight, brain, before you say something really inappropriate at a really stupid time.

No, not like usual, I mean really bad.

The other inappropriate stuff you say is friggin' hilarious, you keep that up.

Baby!

Phew!

Alrighty then.

My friend has had her baby!

I didn't get to witness the (terrifying) miracle of birth as, despite being two weeks overdue and the doctors giving some medical encouragement, baby had not descended (ie, headed towards the main gates) and due to his apparent size the doctors recommended a Caesarean.

I did however get to witness part of the miracle of labour and yeah, it looks kind of uncomfortable.

Back to the baby!

As predicted by every single ultrasound they've had, it's a boy!

He weighed in at 10 lb 4 oz*!

Don't ask me why but babies is one thing where our metric measuring country uses pounds and ounces to give weights. Maybe because it makes it easier for people of earlier generations** to go 'woooh, that's a big lad!' without having to reach for the calculator.

Mum and bub are both doing well, even if Mum is a bit sore in the midsection from being opened up .

Given he's so brawny you're not as worried about accidentally breaking him as you*** are with the really itty bitty bubs and I've got to have a few holds.

It is still really REALLY weird to think of my friend as being a mother, a sentiment she whole-heartedly shares, but she and her fella are doing so well with him already. It's all adoring stares and goo-goo eyes and kisses over there.

She'll be in the hospital a few days more whilst they make sure she's recovering from surgery OK and that she is managing to insert Tab A into Slot B successfully****.

We're off to buy the happy family some little gifts and do some sneaky housework for them whilst we're at their house under the camouflage of the legitimate purpose of feeding their pets.

It's weird to think that everything is going to change now, exciting too.



*4.66 kg!

**Yes, Australia used to use the Imperial system. We swapped over somewhere between the start of the 1970s and the end of the 1980s.

***Well, me...

****Tab A is her nipple! Slot B is the baby's mouth!

Due Date

Hey baby, where are you?

You were supposed to have exited the womb in a calm and orderly fashion by now.

Today was your due date and we were all kind of expecting you to keep the appointment.

To be frank it's quite rude of you to keep us waiting, especially your poor mother!

I've read all the information sheets from the Royal Women's Hospital and watched all the episodes of One Born Every Minute and I've had my Awesome Supportive Birth Partner kit by the door for the last month.

Everyone out here is ready for you, soooo....

Yep, today was my friend's due date and her baby has inconsiderately failed to materialise.

Considering how big her tum has been for the last month we've been expecting him to pop out at any minute for the last three weeks but it seems he is in no hurry to oblige.

She's at the stage where she's a bit over it.

She can't move around easily, she's up every half hour or hour during the night to go to the bathroom, she aches all over, she can't get comfortable, she can't get much done, she hasn't laid on her stomach for about 5 months, she hasn't had a drink in 9 months...

She is READY for this baby to be ejected from the pod!

I was always one of those people who thought 'What's the rush? Just let the baby come out when it's ready' but all the years I was thinking this it didn't occur to me - and it was only pointed out to me recently - that the rush is that the baby keeps growing.
So not only is it getting cramped, it is going to be a lot bigger when it tries to make its way through the emergency exit!
That and it would probably have sucked the placenta dry by then, like the tiny vampire it is.

She's going to keep doing all the lovely labour-bringing-on-ish things that have been advised to her but if he goes too far past this following week he'll be getting an eviction notice from the medical professionals at the hospital who won't take no for an answer.

Fingers crossed he gets the idea soon!


Edit (4th July 2012): My friend has had a check up with the doctor who says everything is fine and the baby is doing well, he just doesn't feel like coming out yet.
He's been given until the 12th of July to get this show on the road on his own, if he doesn't she'll be induced.
On Friday the 13th.
Such an auspicious day! :-D

To Battle Stations!

Oh... Wow... Really?

Wow...OK...

You remember at the start of the year when I said my friend Awesome and her fella were expecting a baby?

Well it's not long to go now and it turns out that, contrary to my assumptions, I *am* going to be a birth partner 0_0

This is both a huge honour and really *really* nerve-wracking!

Because a) I want to make sure I support her properly and don't get in the way and b) DO YOU KNOW WHERE BABIES COME FROM? THIS IS GOING TO BE INTENSE!

I am soooooooooooooo* glad I watched all those episodes of One Born Every Minute when she first told me she was pregnant.

It seems it's time to dust them off and watch them again, focusing this time on the fact that I'll be in the room whilst it's going on.

I've been putting together a list of things I can bring that she and her husband may have forgotten or not thought about.

Ricochet's Awesome List of Supportive Birth Partner Paraphernalia

• hand fan to fan her with (or hand-held battery powered one if I can find it, maybe both)
• flannels for her face
• lavender oil
• heat packs
• spray bottle to mist her with
• snacks
• playing cards for if it's a long, boring labour
• exercise ball for her to sit on
• head bands for holding back hair
• tissues for all the crying
• CAMERA! DON'T FORGET THE CAMERA!
• and last but not least, any remaining romantic notions I may have about giving birth, though I expect I'll be asked to leave these at the door as they interfere with the equipment... and the screaming...

I'm trying not to overdo it and walk in with a wheelie travel case of things like a travelling salesman ready to unload some high quality snake oil on the unsuspecting populace but I figure the items on this list stand a good chance of coming in handy.

So, yeah, this is happening.

I think I'm ready.

But I'm pretty sure I'm not :-p



*Believe me, there are more o's. So many. You have no idea.

Give 'Em Some Slack And Then Reel 'Em In!

Amongst the new experiences I had on my trip to New Zealand*, my favourite by far was charter fishing.

The sunburn I managed to get on my shoulders aside, it was a great day out.

I've never been anti-fishing but I've discovered that what makes the experience absolutely fantastic is:

1. Having all the right equipment.
   
2. Going with somebody who knows what they're doing.

Baiting the hook I'm fine with.

Casting or releasing the line - in the case of weighted-line fishing, which this was - again, completely fine.

Reeling the fish in and using a cloth to grasp it when taking it off the hook so its spines don't stab you in the hand**, no problemo.

Killing the fish and turning it from entire creature into edible chunks, errr...

It isn't that I have a moral objection to killing the fish.

As an omnivore, I believe that any animals within the normally accepted 'edible' subcategory' raised and killed humanely are fair and delicious game.

I've just not been taught how to do it and have no practice and wouldn't want to bodge it up and cause the fish distress.

But the guy who took us out on his boat not only had good quality fishing rods, a suitable vessel, and built-in chopping boards and knives set up for cutting up your appropriate bait; he also swiftly and efficiently dispatched our fishy bounty and then skillfully turned them into fillets on the spot!

With all the equipment provided being of proper quality and suitable to the task everything runs a lot more smoothly than if you - as a casual fisherwoman - try and get the same results with a kit you've bodged together without quite knowing what you're up to or wanting to spend too much money in case it turns out that you're rubbish at fishing.

Without having to worry about inept or accidentally cruel fish execution, the 5 hour jaunt was one of the most relaxing and enjoyable afternoons I've spent in a while.

I think between the four of us we reeled in about 40 fish.

We only got to keep about 16 as the others didn't meet legal size requirements but that's OK.

There's only so much fish you can eat and as most of the fun is reeling them in, it was no hardship to throw the lucky tiddlers back to try again.

And apart from the fact fishing is a lot of fun, and that the sun on the waves*** and the light breeze and the scent of salt on the air were wonderfully soothing, when we did get our bag of ice and neatly sliced fillets home, the fish was delicious.

Del-ic-ious.

So moist and tender and fresh and full of flavour!

Just a touch of lemon and pepper and it was one of the most amazing things I've ever eaten.

At some point in the future I intend to go fishing again.

And for maximum fish and fun, it'll be with someone who knows what they're doing.

*One of which was taking an overnight flight, getting into Auckland at 5:20am and then waiting until the sun came up to get the bus to the ferry terminal because I didn't want to be found at dawn bobbing up and down in the water like a crime drama cadaver.

**They were predominantly snapper.

***And on my stupid shoulders which I kept forgetting every time I reapplied sunscreen to my arms.

Expanding The Franchise The Old-Fashioned Way

Do you guys remember my mate Awesome?

Well she and her fella have been married for about a year and a half now and towards the end of last year she told me that the two of them were trying for a baby.

You could have knocked me over with a feather.

Awesome has never been that interested in kids and had always said she was going to have dogs instead.

Of course that was before we met our friend Inky*.

Inky has three little boys.
When we first started hanging out with her they were 0, 2, and 4.
They're now 2, 4, and 6.

Over the last two years Awesome's time with Inky's kids has obviously convinced her that tinier humans are not in fact the devil's spawn that she thought they were and that having one of her own might not be such a terrible thing.

And now Awesome and her husband are expecting.

So having been informed I am going to be an auntie, I immediately starting thinking of ways I could help out.

For starters I've been reminding everyone that as a metal-head couple, Awesome and her fella are not going to be wanting any gifts in pastel.
They've already bought Awesome Junior this here jumpsuit...


...and most of the baby's other clothes are likely to be fairly similar in nature.

The other thing I started doing was research.

This is what I do.

I read up on stuff and just have it sitting in my head in case it becomes useful.
It's how I helped my sister and Awesome plan for their respective weddings and it has served me well in a lot of other situations.

So I did a bit of generalised reading here, a bit of asking all my kid-having relatives and coworkers what are the most useful things you can do to help out a new set of parents there, a bit of looking a baby paraphernalia when out and about.

Over Christmas I spent about four days getting some hands on experience with my cousin's 4 month old and 20 month old so that when Awesome is all sleep-deprived and serial-killer-looking I can pop over for a bit and wrangle the child as she has a shower and/or a nap and gets out of the house for a bit.

Two tips I learned from that particular experience:

1. Don't wear necklaces around babies and toddlers. Not because they will get a hold of them - though they will - but because they have this disconcerting habit of flinging their heads against your chest and you don't want to have to explain a Celtic cross shaped bruise on their soft head bits**.
2. If you've got a voice you use for telling your dogs or cats off it works perfectly with kids. You say 'put that down' in the 'no' voice you use for dogs and they put that right down. So useful!
   

Somehow I managed to not actually be in charge of said kids any time they needed their nappies changed which I just put down to being further proof that the universe loves me.

Awesome isn't quite ready to actually think about the Baby Exit Strategy just yet so I figured I'd have a look into it for her so that when she is ready to start planning I can have the information on hand.

So I started watching this documentary One Born Every Minute and Oh My Lord.

Apparently having babies can be somewhat painful!
I mean obviously it would be considering what has to come out where but until I watched this show I didn't fully comprehend how long labour went on and some of things that can happen during it.
Bloody amazing.

And some people's partners are completely [redacted] useless!
They just sit there looking fed up and making snide comments whilst their lady writhes around in agony.
I know you're only seeing a slice of their life and it's at quite a stressful time but you'd think that during labour would be the one time you'd manage to reign in your jackassery and be supportive!
Even if just to look good for the cameras!

But overall it's a fascinating series.

You get to see a snapshot of people's family situations, their circumstances, their personalities and witness an important moment in their lives.

It does make you think the human body is somewhat bodged together as it seems to take an absurd amount of effort to eject a fresh human being from the slot.

Inky is going to be Awesome's other birth partner (along with Awesome's husband) as she's had several children and is a registered nurse so I won't actually be there but knowing what is coming up is both incredibly interesting and rather daunting.

Both from a logistics point of view and from a 'holy crap, we're adults now' viewpoint.

Obviously we have been for a while, we're all about 28, but the events of the last few years have really driven it home.

Awesome has gotten married and is expecting a baby.

Eep has built a house with her fella and they're getting married at the end of this year.

I have a credit card and have used it to book international flights and hotel rooms like a real grown up and am routinely taken seriously despite constantly feeling like I'm play acting.

We've all had cars, had jobs, paid taxes, organised all sorts of weird and woolly grown up things and after Awesome Junior pops out of the chute everything is going to be different from then on.

Awesome will be the first of my friends to have a baby*** and even with all the reading I've done I don't think I'll be ready for how much that's going to change our lives and the nature of our friendships.

If nothing else it's going to be educational.



*She has tattoos. Lovely tattoos.

**This didn't happen but it was close, oh so close!

***Inky has babies but I didn't know here when she was having them. They came as part of the package with our friendship. Awesome is the first of my school friends to have a baby.

And Nothing Else Matters...

This weekend I was a bridesmaid.

It's not something I've ever really cared about doing one way or another.

But for my mate Awesome, I was in.

The wedding party all wore black, including the bride.

The groom wore a top hat and a long coat with tails that looked more likely to have a rifle tucked inside it than anything else.

There were Halloween skeleton confetti and black stars scattered on the tables.

They had their bridal waltz to Metallica's 'Nothing Else Matters'.

And it was one of the most genuine weddings I've ever been to.

They didn't write their own vows because they both think that's soppy bullshit but they did have a handfasting ceremony instead of a traditional service.

They made silly noises and funny faces and cried and laughed and told people to shut up and jittered around during the ceremony and when it came time for the kiss all the guests were yelling suggestions and wolf-whistling and stamping their feet.

And that's how it should be.

They love each other and they wanted to show it in a way that was true to who they are and how they want to be.

And it was beautiful and I've never been prouder to be part of something.

Good luck and \m/

I've Heard Wonderful Things About Eloping, I Even Made You A Brochure About It...

Ugh.

Bridal Expos.

Do not want.

My lovely mate Awesome is getting married in the not too distant future and myself and Eep of the embarrassing teenage adventures have been proclaimed bridesmaids.

So when Awesome told us she wanted to check out the Bridal Expo at the Exhibition Centre this weekend Eep and I pledged our attendance.
Not because we're that interested in Bridal Expos* but because we are going to support our friend dammit!

I knew I couldn't take a book because - as I was reliably informed throughout my childhood, most of my high school years and just last week - it is very rude to read when you're out with other people.
Even when they are being boring and you are perfectly capable of following the conversation and reading at the same time.
So I left my book and took my mp3 player instead.
Just in case.

And thank all that is good in this world that I did.

I knew the stalls would be a bit of a gauntlet but that's par for the course when you go to any kind of expo or even a school/university open day.
I knew that there would be a lot of giggling, excited, bouncing hugging women giggling and hugging and bouncing excitedly.

I was not prepared for "The Fashion Parade".

The "Fashion Parade" opened with a pair of instructors from a local dancing school giving a demonstration of how you could spice up your bridal waltz instead of doing the boring bog-standard side-to-side.
I don't know about you but in the event I get married I don't really want to mount my new husband's thigh in front of my grandmother at my reception.
Also if my imaginary husband was prepared to swivel and jiggle like that I'd be a little worried.
I am an easily embarrassed person and I don't think I'd dance with a swivelling jiggler let alone marry them.

After the thigh-grinders came a lounge singer with a pleasant but in no way impressive voice singing a variety of schmaltzy romantic songs handpicked from the RomComs of the last ten years.
At this point I took out my beloved mp3 player and embraced the beauty that is Alestorm, Arch Enemy and Emilie Simon**.

Now according to the organisers the natural progression is thigh-grinding dance, crooning and then... male strippers.
Just in case you want them at the wedding.
Or I guess the hens' night.
I kept the mp3 player in for this too.
My music was better than theirs, the stripping wasn't that alluring and none of the however many hundred women were drunk at midday so there was mostly polite applause instead of woo-ing and demands for the gentlemen to 'take it off'.

So, if you're following me so far.
Thigh-grinding.
Crooning.
Stripping.
So the next logical step is...

That's right! Junior ballet troop!
A bunch of 9 year old girls run out onto stage and start doing a cute little choreographed piece in pink tutus.
I hope they had a different changeroom from the strippers.
The mp3 player continued to perform admirably.

After this fascinating presentation on the evolution of the wedding plan they actually started showing wedding dresses and grooms... wear? You know, suits.
The fellows modelling the suits had very nice cheekbones but all the suits looked the same to me.
The choice seemed to be between light grey, black or deep navy. Some with pinstripes, most with vests but don't ask me about cuts because I haven't the foggiest.

The wedding dresses... well all I can say is that the strapless look must be 'in' right now because 95% of the dresses were strapless and basically a variation on one design with varying degrees of baubles attached.
We saw one dress that Awesome found interesting.
In an hour of 'fashion gazing' we saw one dress.

It was at this point Awesome decided we'd seen enough and weak with gratitude we dragged ourselves out of the auditorium and back into the light.
Due to the occasional uncharacteristic bout of girliness since the engagement I had been politely terrified that Awesome was gazing upon the spectacle before us with glee and shining eyes.
However this fear was put to rest when the first words out of her mouth once we were in the hallway were "Well that was a steaming pile of crap!"
Eep and I have never been so relieved in our lives.

The expo wasn't a complete bust. We got a few ideas of what Awesome could do if she wanted to and what she definitely never will and we met a lovely silver-haired rockabilly limo driver with a bitching pompadour and blue and black leather wingtip shoes, but we were all glad to get out of the place and hit the nearest pub for a restorative glass.

There's only so much of that sort of thing a person can take in one day and it turns out that Eep, Awesome and myself have a common low threshold which might explain why we've been friends for so long :-D





*Well I'm not, Eep of the embarrassing teenage adventures and her fella are building a house so the dreamy 'I is can have bouquet' mindset is slowly gaining strength.
**I like to mix it up a little and I found that her style was much more successful in assimilating and destroying the schmaltz. Despite the awesomeness of Alestorm and Arch Enemy I could still hear schmaltzing going on in the background.

Oh Lord He's Doing A Little Dance!

There have been a lot of changes in my world of late.
Not with me - I am probably a bit too comfortable on cruise control - but with the people around me.

Two of my friends (R of the NIN concert and Eep of the embarrassing teenage adventures who is making her blog mention debut) have just purchased blocks of land with their partners and are planning to build houses in the near future.
Another friend has quit her brain-numbing job, enrolled in a TAFE course, gotten engaged... and crashed her car. She's OK but her car looks a little buck-toothed at the moment, there was some strange crumpling...

The job-quitting, course-taking, engagement-entering, car-crashing friend is my mate Awesome and in some ways I'm having more trouble with her changes than with those of any of the others.
Not because of the job-quitting or course-enrolling because that is a cause for celebration and jubilation across the land.
Not because of the engagement-entering because her fella is a genuinely nice guy and they balance each other out nicely.
But because of the... side effects of the engagement-entering.

Awesome, Eep (of the aforementioned house/land buying and embarrassing teenage adventures) and I have been friends for about 10 years now and none of us have ever been... excessively girly.
The other two have a lot more knowledge of hair sculpting or face painting than I have but haven't gone to extremes.
Eep has a higher appreciation of shoes and bags and whatnot than Awesome or I but has never gone buck wild with those either.
Whilst I'm probably the least accomplished in the girly arts due to equal parts laziness and allergy - huzzah sensitive skin huzzah! - Awesome has always been the most pragmatic and down to earth.
But since she became engaged...

There has been giggling.
There has been buying of magazines when there has never been buying of magazines before*.
And I have been given a small notebook and a coloured pen.
For just in case I have ideas for the wedding.
We are to compare notes at intervals.

So far all I've got is: There should be one.

I am ten kinds of happy for her but I've never made this kind of plan so I'm going to have to take a bit of a bit of a mental hop, skip and a jump at it and hope for the best.

This is being made more difficult by the concept of the hens' night.
Which Eep has already started planning.
There is apparently going to be a stripper.
He is apparently going to be dressed as Darth Vader.
Ever since I heard this I have been unable to get the visual out of my head.
And it is going to be the end of me.




*Well except for ones featuring space-faring adventures, music of a fairly epic nature or cricket players whose children she has offered to bear.