Dating A Hunchback


The art of dating when you are in your 40’s is a perilous, soul destroying mission. I blame my never ending search for ‘happy ever after’ on my parents, who with the best of intentions invariably reared me on the “Fairy Tale Factor”.

It was easier in my 20’s. Mr Right had hair; his own teeth – I could search in the 20’s man pool. Now, my toe has to slink into the 50’s pool. And when you finally find one that meets the minimum requirements, humorous, can string a sentence together, you don’t physically shudder upon meeting; you find out they don’t come with baggage – they come with whole other thing. A veritable harridan of a wife who hasn’t quite made it to the ‘ex’ list as yet; and she is clinging to his back like a hump.

Friday, June 14, 2013

Packed… With a Mother’s Love

We have all heard about the trip to France with the school band, right?

First we had the Squeeze putting his foot down firmly to say “I’ll pay a third – but Kid, you pay a third and save your spending money…”  That was about six point three seconds before he rolled over and sucked up the kid’s third – and spending money – because we all knew he was never going to get a job and save.

I have my doubts that she is paying, but if she’s not, he’s too scared to tell me J

France is in the next couple of days and I’ve been saying for a while that’s it time to bring the suit case home with the stuff he intends to take…  You know.  Live dangerously... try going with organised!

Yesterday, the Harridan sent the kids France stuff home.
WTF?
Packed with mummy’s love…
Who the hell packs for France - in a garbage bag with filthy, wrinkly clothes..?

Monday, June 10, 2013

The Circus

Sometimes, I feel like my life is a circus.

Seriously; this is weird, because carny folk scare me.  I shudder if I see a clown.  Ugly little things with their faces hidden.  My older sister was once called ugly in front of a whole circus full of people; in fact they were looking for the ugliest person in the room.  Yep; you guessed it – the tormentor was a clown.  My younger sister caught a cab home from a night out once…  The driver was a clown (not dressed as such, but he stupidly mentioned he worked as a clown).  She made him pull up one street over so he didn’t know where she lived.  Suffice to say, we are coulrophobic.

But here I am, living a life with a Clown and I’m seriously wondering ‘why?’ 

Last week was a damned hard gig.  Harder than usual and there is nothing even remotely simple about ‘usual’.  The Squeeze seems to believe (mistakenly) that those initial negotiations are no longer important nor to be adhered to.  Actually, I think he believes his part in this relationship is to ‘agree’ to them.  Not actually stick to them.  It doesn’t matter what I say or think.

I have other ideas.  I mean didn’t I give him “this is the most I can deal with”..  So if that was my line in the sand; why does he think it no longer exists?   

Last week I dealt with the “no toilet flushing” issue every single day.  It doesn’t matter what I say to this kid.  He ignores me.  It is the same with eating his cereal with a teaspoon…  Ignored.  Then we had the dinner where he couldn’t eat what we were having because “he didn’t understand the flavour combination…”  WTF?  And the Squeeze, pandering to this nonsense, decides to cook two meals – of which I am left to deal with the aftermath – utter devastation to my kitchen.  And of course, Kid 3 did eat a bowl of our meal (actually, he almost inhaled it) – so much for not understanding the “flavour combinations”.

Suffice to say, I am swiftly understanding why this kid’s phone doesn’t ring and his friend count is zero.  In fact, I’m surprised he isn’t coming home from school every night in a rubbish bin (Bart Simpson style).

The more I understand it the firmer the Squeeze’s parent goggles are fitted; and he hates me for it.

So I cling to those sans kid days, like a life raft.  So imagine my surprise today to see a message by the Harridan instructing the Squeeze to pick the kid up today – and his reply was to say no problem.  Ummm  WTF?  Sorry.  This is the weekend. MY time.  The weekend – as per the agreement, is the whole weekend.  He goes to school and comes to us after that…  Tomorrow!  Not a day earlier!

And because I dare to say no… Because it doesn’t make “sense” to the Squeeze; I suffer the silent treatment again.  Difficult, since he only started talking to me yesterday after the girl and I had a healthy debate with the kid re his obnoxious “lack of understanding the food flavours” on Thursday night. 

And as the negotiations and promises are eroded and fall; so does what I feel.  How can it be any other way..?

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Advice to Stalkers…

I thought I’d give a word of advice to anyone out there who figures it’s okay to be a creepy stalker…

Today, the Squeeze (who I still want to punch after last weeks parent-goggles bullshit) and I went off to Federation Square for the Melbourne Jazz Festival.  Let me mention at this point in time - I would rather be stripped naked, covered in honey and staked to an ants nest as opposed to sitting through jazz; however it is only for one hour and even I can suck that up.

Kid 1 was playing and so off we went, into the cold; scarves, hot coffee and bacon and egg muffins.

Midway through Kid 1’s 'set', the Harridan, Kid 3 and assorted other velvet wearing relatives showed up to parade around.

We kept a low profile and in fact it was like a morning in dance lessons as we waltzed around the square avoiding one velvet wearer or another.

The Harridan, in some sort of weird “I’m a freaking stalker” kind of action, left her people and walked through the crowd to stand about 3 metres from us.  I strategically positioned myself to have my back to her – so she came and stood on the other side – this time about 3 feet from us.  Once again, I spun and faced the other direction.  Frankly, I think I was as graceful as a ballerina!  Eventually, she moseyed off back to velvet clan without uttering a word (not that I actually looked or acknowledged her) but I thought ‘who the Hell does that?’ 

How creepy is this woman?   She’s like the terminator.  She can’t be reasoned with.  She can’t be bargained with.  And she absolutely will not stop until we are dead!

She may think she unsettled us but to be perfectly honest, all I could do was grin to myself.  Even velvet wearing, non antibiotic, vegetarian tossers start porking up in their 50’s.  I was thrilled to see her white coat stretching tight and outlining several middle aged rolls.

So thrilled, I took a picture  
Face altered to protect my ass….