Running everywhere at such a speed/Until they find there's no need
Gigglewick's festive season diary
Weekend One:
1 December
Drive to parents’ house. Pick up mother. Drive to Melbourne talking all the way. Stop so mother can buy mother greasy fast food from evil Empire. Receive text message from Indeed that she is unable to stay this weekend. Talk to Indeed. She is very sick. Worry about Indeed. Watch planes and browse through shops at airport, still talking. Pick up father from airport after his plane is delayed by an hour.
Father informs me that the hiking stick I bought him saved his life in Nepal. Control alarm over near-death of father just enough to gloat ever so slightly. Stop on way home for parents to obtain dinner. Drive parents back to their home. Assist father in puncturing my ten month old car’s windscreen with market umbrella. Assure father it is not his fault while forcing back tears.
Have following exchange with father:
Father: Hey, did you lose a hubcap?
Gigglewick: No, we did NOT LOSE A F-CKING HUBCAP!!!!
Father: Oh. There’s one gone though.
Gigglewick: (jumps up and down on gravel and shakes fist at sky, swearing profusely)
Go home and make five salads and clean house before collapsing on couch.
2 December
Drive to work to collect Christmas tree holder to hold Christmas tree that Mr Fix had bought “as a surprise” the day before. Continue to clean house while Mr Fix files down Christmas tree and snaps Christmas tree holder in half. Swear under breath while Mr Fix drives to convenience store buy another one. Grizzlewick in paroxysm of over-excitement.
Host barbecue of own devising for twenty people and seven kids. Curse hot northerly winds and call work colleague’s wife by wrong name. Start several conversations without finishing them. Sweat profusely. Worry constantly about food. Worry about children and sunburn. Become hero of children by serving up chocolate ice cream in cones. Manage to drink only one glass of wine as it keeps going missing. Engender in guests that I am possessed of a half-dazed persona that will follow me for some time, and may yet interfere in my professional life.
Two guests turn up an hour after conclusion of barbecue. They bring wine. Drop a stubby on the kitchen floor and flood it with beer and shards of glass. Later that day, step on small shard of glass which embeds in my foot and requires home surgery by a Stanley-knife wielding Mr Fix.
Collapse on couch.
Weekend Two:
8 December
Drive to Melbourne. Forget to pack Christmas gifts for L’s family. Go to L’s house and eat copious amounts of cheese while watching our children play together. Fail to buy meat for Indeed’s barbecue. Go to barbecue at Indeed’s house. Make L (who drove me there) walk two blocks because convinced parking would not be available. Notice spare car park outside Indeed’s house. Chop an entire jar of capers before realizing they are not peppercorns. Spend hours watching Grizzlewick and Lovely (son of L) run around in Indeed’s back yard. Eat several barbecue treats. Drive exhausted children home to L’s house.
9 December
Drive home, leaving Grizzlewick’s doona and pillow behind and failing to deliver CDs and DVDs borrowed some months before. Drive across four lanes of traffic in order to stop at Red Rooster. Puzzle over the current toy offering which appears to be a blue flea with teeth which has wheels and flips itself over. Grizzlewick delighted. Gigglewick exhausted. Completely disappointed by Sunday night television.
Weekend Three:
15 December
Drive to parents’ house, drop off lawn mower. Drive to Melbourne via donut stop at local bakery. Mr Fix almost humiliates me by referring to my sister’s classmate by his nickname rather than his actual name (luckily not his worst nickname). Return to friend L’s house after begging another night due to lack of familial hospitality. Remember their gifts, as well as the CDs and DVDs I have borrowed. Bring cheese. Discover L and I have bought the same dip. Congratulate ourselves on good taste. Discuss Hobbes and the limits of sovereignty*
Visit J (de facto extra grandmother) and eat crackers while Grizzlewick tears apart her toy box. She gives him binoculars for Christmas. He is delighted and informs her they “work very properly”. Go out for dinner with Indeed and spend most of that time taking Grizzlewick to the toilet. Waitron brings incorrect food. Return to L’s house and spend some hours discussing religion and science and drinking more wine.
16 December
Awake to the dulcet tones of Grizzlewick and Lovely stomping on the floorboards at 6:20am despite a VERY late night the night before. Get up and watch them play while idly reading the new Slash “autobiography”** and drinking three cups of coffee. After an enormous breakfast of fried food for all, Grizzlewick and Lovely depart to Lovely’s room to deposit pretty much his entire bedroom contents through the front window onto the garden. Discipline ensues. Grizzlewick kicks me. Grizzlewick is further disciplined.
Realise Mr Fix has not confirmed the status of present-giving with his family (e.g presents or cards only). Spend harried morning in Essendon, Fitzroy and Prahran finishing off Christmas shopping with no belt for my pants, which fall down enough that you can see not only the top of my undies, but in fact a glimpse of leg below undies. Buy belt in $2 Shop.
Arrive at yum cha exhausted, but get great car park across the road from restaurant. Grizzlewick tries a variety of foods including fried scallops (“I don’t think I like that mummy”) and spring rolls (“they taste like chips!”). Grizzlewick distributes gifts to family – “Here you go Uncle B! It’s WINE!!!!”. MiL is pleased (although incapacitated) by slate placemats purchased after much agonizing over personal taste vs. other people’s taste.
Receive text message half-way through lunch to let me know that I have left Grizzlewick’s blankets at L’s house. Again. Visit L to pick up blankets and change clothes before drive home. Informed by Grizzlewick after a short but clearly inadequate nap that he likes “nothing, not even lollies” and that he “isn’t being naughty, he’s just grumpy”.
Read Grizzlewick a story about a farting dog before collapsing on the couch, rising only to dust house and make 90 second porridge for dinner. Cry during Erin Brockovich.as a result of utter exhaustion.
IS ANYONE ELSE LOOKING FORWARD TO CHRISTMAS I KNOW I AM.
* have I not mentioned that I am a civics nerd?
** I could be wrong, but I would argue that if they left out the phrase "...who had incredible tits" from this book, it would be half its current length.
Weekend One:
1 December
Drive to parents’ house. Pick up mother. Drive to Melbourne talking all the way. Stop so mother can buy mother greasy fast food from evil Empire. Receive text message from Indeed that she is unable to stay this weekend. Talk to Indeed. She is very sick. Worry about Indeed. Watch planes and browse through shops at airport, still talking. Pick up father from airport after his plane is delayed by an hour.
Father informs me that the hiking stick I bought him saved his life in Nepal. Control alarm over near-death of father just enough to gloat ever so slightly. Stop on way home for parents to obtain dinner. Drive parents back to their home. Assist father in puncturing my ten month old car’s windscreen with market umbrella. Assure father it is not his fault while forcing back tears.
Have following exchange with father:
Father: Hey, did you lose a hubcap?
Gigglewick: No, we did NOT LOSE A F-CKING HUBCAP!!!!
Father: Oh. There’s one gone though.
Gigglewick: (jumps up and down on gravel and shakes fist at sky, swearing profusely)
Go home and make five salads and clean house before collapsing on couch.
2 December
Drive to work to collect Christmas tree holder to hold Christmas tree that Mr Fix had bought “as a surprise” the day before. Continue to clean house while Mr Fix files down Christmas tree and snaps Christmas tree holder in half. Swear under breath while Mr Fix drives to convenience store buy another one. Grizzlewick in paroxysm of over-excitement.
Host barbecue of own devising for twenty people and seven kids. Curse hot northerly winds and call work colleague’s wife by wrong name. Start several conversations without finishing them. Sweat profusely. Worry constantly about food. Worry about children and sunburn. Become hero of children by serving up chocolate ice cream in cones. Manage to drink only one glass of wine as it keeps going missing. Engender in guests that I am possessed of a half-dazed persona that will follow me for some time, and may yet interfere in my professional life.
Two guests turn up an hour after conclusion of barbecue. They bring wine. Drop a stubby on the kitchen floor and flood it with beer and shards of glass. Later that day, step on small shard of glass which embeds in my foot and requires home surgery by a Stanley-knife wielding Mr Fix.
Collapse on couch.
Weekend Two:
8 December
Drive to Melbourne. Forget to pack Christmas gifts for L’s family. Go to L’s house and eat copious amounts of cheese while watching our children play together. Fail to buy meat for Indeed’s barbecue. Go to barbecue at Indeed’s house. Make L (who drove me there) walk two blocks because convinced parking would not be available. Notice spare car park outside Indeed’s house. Chop an entire jar of capers before realizing they are not peppercorns. Spend hours watching Grizzlewick and Lovely (son of L) run around in Indeed’s back yard. Eat several barbecue treats. Drive exhausted children home to L’s house.
9 December
Drive home, leaving Grizzlewick’s doona and pillow behind and failing to deliver CDs and DVDs borrowed some months before. Drive across four lanes of traffic in order to stop at Red Rooster. Puzzle over the current toy offering which appears to be a blue flea with teeth which has wheels and flips itself over. Grizzlewick delighted. Gigglewick exhausted. Completely disappointed by Sunday night television.
Weekend Three:
15 December
Drive to parents’ house, drop off lawn mower. Drive to Melbourne via donut stop at local bakery. Mr Fix almost humiliates me by referring to my sister’s classmate by his nickname rather than his actual name (luckily not his worst nickname). Return to friend L’s house after begging another night due to lack of familial hospitality. Remember their gifts, as well as the CDs and DVDs I have borrowed. Bring cheese. Discover L and I have bought the same dip. Congratulate ourselves on good taste. Discuss Hobbes and the limits of sovereignty*
Visit J (de facto extra grandmother) and eat crackers while Grizzlewick tears apart her toy box. She gives him binoculars for Christmas. He is delighted and informs her they “work very properly”. Go out for dinner with Indeed and spend most of that time taking Grizzlewick to the toilet. Waitron brings incorrect food. Return to L’s house and spend some hours discussing religion and science and drinking more wine.
16 December
Awake to the dulcet tones of Grizzlewick and Lovely stomping on the floorboards at 6:20am despite a VERY late night the night before. Get up and watch them play while idly reading the new Slash “autobiography”** and drinking three cups of coffee. After an enormous breakfast of fried food for all, Grizzlewick and Lovely depart to Lovely’s room to deposit pretty much his entire bedroom contents through the front window onto the garden. Discipline ensues. Grizzlewick kicks me. Grizzlewick is further disciplined.
Realise Mr Fix has not confirmed the status of present-giving with his family (e.g presents or cards only). Spend harried morning in Essendon, Fitzroy and Prahran finishing off Christmas shopping with no belt for my pants, which fall down enough that you can see not only the top of my undies, but in fact a glimpse of leg below undies. Buy belt in $2 Shop.
Arrive at yum cha exhausted, but get great car park across the road from restaurant. Grizzlewick tries a variety of foods including fried scallops (“I don’t think I like that mummy”) and spring rolls (“they taste like chips!”). Grizzlewick distributes gifts to family – “Here you go Uncle B! It’s WINE!!!!”. MiL is pleased (although incapacitated) by slate placemats purchased after much agonizing over personal taste vs. other people’s taste.
Receive text message half-way through lunch to let me know that I have left Grizzlewick’s blankets at L’s house. Again. Visit L to pick up blankets and change clothes before drive home. Informed by Grizzlewick after a short but clearly inadequate nap that he likes “nothing, not even lollies” and that he “isn’t being naughty, he’s just grumpy”.
Read Grizzlewick a story about a farting dog before collapsing on the couch, rising only to dust house and make 90 second porridge for dinner. Cry during Erin Brockovich.as a result of utter exhaustion.
IS ANYONE ELSE LOOKING FORWARD TO CHRISTMAS I KNOW I AM.
* have I not mentioned that I am a civics nerd?
** I could be wrong, but I would argue that if they left out the phrase "...who had incredible tits" from this book, it would be half its current length.
posted by gigglewick at
1:45 pm
8 Comments:
I KNOW!!
I vote we make Christmas a leap year thing, like the olympics.
I'm still zen.
*gloats*
(but only a little bit. Of gloating that is. I've got HEAPS of zen.)
Miz,
I love Christmas. I love it even more this year as I am now finished all my driving. Finished, I tells ya.
Meva,
Lucky you!!!!
I am feeling very buddha-like (quick, rub my tummy) after an awesome visit from the delightful MsB and her family...all goodwill towards (hu)mans restored.
You're right, there's nothing like a visit from the endlessly charming MsB to lift the spirits. This woman and her family must move states imemdiately.
Also, you can't tell us that someone's life was saved by a hiking stick in Nepal AND THEN NOT PROVIDE DETAILS.
Just sayin'.
And who is it that you know who has Slash's autobiography lying around the house?
This is mystifying/ why do I not own this book already
Oh holy Ford! It sounds horrific! And I thought mine was bad.
INCraig,
Don't think I'm not advocating that.
Re Nepal - it's dad's story to tell, but basically huge ravine + heaps of gravel on a slippery slope above an abyss + stick = one saved life.
My friend L has Slash's autobiography. She bought it after seeing it SELL OUT COMPLETELY in a Hobart bookstore. I think it's awesome that she has it, although worry for the future, etc. Also, if you consider yourself a feminist of any stripe, it won't be your favourite book. Don't say you haven't been warned.
Redcap,
I know. Here lies the explanation for my lack of facebook recently, and also the development of a hacking cough worthy of a Dichens novel.
of course, what I meant was Dickens.
DICKens.
etc.
The question is... did Christmas actually get any better? Because it always has a habit of being overwhelmingly stressful/anticlimactic around our place. Even when 'our place' has mysteriously transplanted itself to The Other Side of the Country. Stupid seasonal stress just follows you where e'er you may go...
Happy New Year Ms Giggles!
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