KerrieJean.com

 

How come nobody has FLINGS anymore?

Why must first daters (hands up all you GUILTY girls) even try to start a family that very night? It’s unseemly. Desperate. Pathethic. On the other hand, flings are the Beroccas of the mind and body….fizzy, life-affirming….ZINGY!

This is the story of my best-ever fling. A story of two lonely people from vastly different cultures thrown together for a fling underpinned by the natural rhythms of peach, apricot and pear seasons.

(The Leeton Soldiers’ Club. Saturday afternoon, Summer,1976………cr: xtlerclub: flickr)

 It is also the story of my first (and last) semi-intimate experience with a YODELLER…….. 

In the late seventies, I was nearly killing myself on the two fruits line at the Letona Cannery Co-Operative: my waking moments spent hunched over a sea of brown rot indispersed with fruit. The job was to grab the brown rot, cutting it out with a purpose-built weapon, a Leeton cannery knife.

One morning (at precisely 6:54am) I was at the bundy clock in my gumboots and net hat.  In went my time card…….Z…ZZ….ZZZZ……BIM…BIM….BIMMM…ZZZZ….ZZ…..ZZZZ….UP IT COMES!  At the other bundy machine?  .….Z…ZZ….ZZZZ……BIM…BIM….BIMMM…ZZZZ….ZZ…..ZZZZ…. UP IT COMES! - A GENTLEMAN!!!

He looked at me. Smiled. Me too. Big Time……. 

I am Klaus…I have jest finissshed vorking, VORKING, all night making tins in ze tin shop. But tomorrow, NOO tins…..NO vork. Vould you like to have a drinnnk with me at za War Club?

Well Mr Klaus…..(you of the daggy fringe and dancing eyes) I would very much like to do zat…..take afternoon drinks at ze Soldiers’ Club. See you at four.

And with this……YODEL, OH-HOR-HOR, YODEL OH-HOR-HOR……he was off…….

This is what I learnt during out first assignation at ze War Club. 

* That the War Club was well-advised to urgently review its stocks of tequila (up until then, one bottle was kept just in case a trade delegation of Mexicans ever visited the cannery to see whether Letona’s famed tomato puree was indeed suitable for taco sauce).

* That Mr Klaus’ father was a famous Viennese orthopaedic surgeon whose patient list consisted solely of celebrities flown in by helicopter to his clinic from all over Europe after near-fatal skiing accidents.

*  That Mr Klaus was in his FOURTEENTH year of a medical degree. All he had to do to fulfil his father’s dream of completion was sit his final examinations. BUT, this was NEVER going to happen.

I am not inteeerested in ze shattered bodee. I am inteeerested in ze complete bodee. And when ze complete bodee YODELS, it is as iiiif I can just make out ze face of God…….My Dad’s dream is not my dream. My dream is to win ze yodelling contest in Switzerland. Understand……?

Understand!? After five tequilas and locally produced orange juice, I not only UNDERSTOOD, I was on my way to Switzerland with a suitcase packed with Butter Menthols and Throaties to nurse my honey bun through the rigors of competitive yodelling at the highest of levels. 

After our Saturday afternoon tequila drinks parties, our fling routine was set. A bicyle ride through the beautiful Walter Burley Griffin designed streetscape of Leeton. O, how we laughed one time when the yodelling Mr Klaus lost control on Leeton’s only incline, Pine Avenue, ending up spread-eagled on the grassy knoll around the War Monument.

Now, I know why all zee men had to die….so I may live (my little KJ) so I may live…….. 

But Summer (as per usual) turned to Autumn and with that, no-more fruit to be cut out from the brown rot. The huge machines at the Cannery spluttered to a halt.

And with the Viennese Medical Registration Board examinations over for another year, Klaus was preparing to return home to re-enrol in advanced yodelling classes.

All flings are marked by final precious moments…….and ours was NO different…..

After Mr Klaus bundied off (7am) for the last time, we cycled to Mountford Park armed with tequila and grenadine (specially ordered in by the chaps at the local bottlo).  On a secluded seat near the endangered swamp duck enclosure, Tequila Sunrises were taken.  

And if I died tomorrow, I can surely say: I HAVE BEEN YODELLED TO……….. 

And God have mercy, there was passion that can only be ignited by imminent separation. My tie-dye silk Indian shirt was rendered ripped. My hair, almost uprooted. My upper lip, split. All pretence of dignity gone in a haze of frantic hands…..indispersed by yodelling.

I left Mountford Park with NO regrets. Turning once to wave, I made a strange muffled yodelling sound. (Yee-ha-ho-ho….)

In the fresh sunlight, I teatered along Pine Avenue.

Then suddenly, a voice….GWENNIE’S. She was on the go early for a perm appointment.

Look at you KJ, look at you…….DRUNK at 8:30 in the morning WITH your top in tatters….YODELLING! ( AND…. exactly when did you start yodelling?) YODELLING like a tart……have you NO shame? NO family pride? This is as VULGAR a display as ever I have seen……Vulgar, vulgar, VULGAR. GO HOME NOW!

I did. Feeling deeply, deeply satisfyingly VULGAR…….aready having deeply vulgar fantasies.

Always the hallmark of a successful fling……….

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So….I’m feeling very vulgar, very sentimental.  I wish I could have more opportunities to be vulgar…….but that’s life. How’s yours progressing? Or maybe it’s going backwards? Love to know…….Trigger words: fling, vulgar, yodel, Emissions Trading Schemes, tequila, Vienna……your own? (Only rule is they have to be in Australia’s National Dictionary, The Macquarie).

****************************************************

THE GINGER MAN’S WAR ON NOTHING IN PARTICULAR

(cr:Mary Godwin:flickr)

****It’s terrible to report but THE GINGER MAN is in deep trouble….

There’s been shocking news overnight on the international crime-fighting front. To recap, TGM is indulging in his very own vulgar ’Foyle’s War’ fantasy BUT I fear that this time, he has gone TOO far.

Just WHO is his driver?

Is she really ’Sam’/Honeysuckle Weeks? WHY did she drop him on the lonely Lachlan Plain in the middle of the night?

Why did she leave a boning knife on a barbed wire fence? AND WHY did she suddenly return? Why, WHY, WHY did TGM get back into the car?

Should the RSPCA be informed that TGM is in a car with Soldier Girl AND Five Super Puppies, their mum, Fetsina (nee Brekkie) and Australia’s first fox-dingo cross, Fingo……?

The woeful sequence of events continues in the comments section. Yes, Sir!

 ******ALL commenters go for it!! Just click on the ‘comment’ thingo and follow the simple instructions. The place to write your gems is at the bottom of the last published comment. *A little bit of counsel for people new to this caper. Your email (just called ‘mail’ in this case) address does NOT come up on site. And just ignore the URL thingo – just ignore it

I’m reasonably well-balanced – EXCEPT when it comes to my hair…….

I’m obsessed, POSSESSED. I MUST hang onto it at any cost. Regularly, dear friends remind me that very long locks on women of a certain age ‘ drag the face down even further’. One recently proferred that I looked like an old bird selling dagwood dogs at a country show….. 

BUT I will NOT be deterred…..

My hair’s going NOWHERE. Touch it and I’ll render you Chicken Maryland cuts in a split second.

BLAME IT ON MRS SULLIVAN:  ’SULLY’.

KJ Post-’Sully’ (Credit: ‘Sully’ Blame: ‘Sully’.

‘Sully’ – retired master hair artiste - was Gwennie’s long-time stylist. Their relationship went back to WW2 when ’Sully’ had Leeton’s plushest salon, Irrigated Waves. The young and very chic Gwennie was her most loyal client.

It was said Gwennie had the best all round roll (with side curls) in the Riverina. And this sensational all round roll (with side curls) had worked a treat because she’d hooked the handsome Hec, producing five lovely girls in record time.

With money tight though, it was hard work keeping them vaguely presentable…………..

But ‘Sully’ - keen to keep her hand in on the hair design front – stepped up, becoming our very own in-house cutter, GRATIS!

HOWEVER, ‘Sully’s’ passion for her craft had a terrible downside – we were being shorn to within a millimetre of our scalps at least every month. Gwennie knew  ‘Sully’s’ professional visits were controversial with the clientele, refusing point blank to disclose when she was going to burst in with her mobile torture kit -  razor sharp scissors, blunt neck clippers and a plastic groundsheet. 

‘Sully’s’ Hubby ‘Sniffles’ (so named because he sniffed a lot) would just suddenly drop his loved one off, promising he’d return when all the kids (sniff) had been (sniff) done……(sniff, sniff, sniff).

Before the kids were done, Gwennie and ‘Sully’ had important business to transact over the lammie table: a double scotch each AND, for Gwennie, a rare indulgence: One Garrick cigarette, compliments of the many Garrick  ‘Sully’.

To tell you the truth, Gwennie never looked at home with her Garrick. Her eyes bulged, the Garrick teetered ridiculously between her thumb and the next finger and she took little poof, poofs rather than puff puffs.

After the Baccanalia….. RAW ACTION.

Gwennie stalked the clients, pulling them from under beds, up the peach tree and behind the wood heap. And then ‘Sully’ did us.  Firstly, she wrapped our trembling torsos in the groundsheet, rendering them motionless. 

AND did I mention that ‘Sully’ also had terrible arthritis……..?

NOT that a cruel disability was going to stop her. With scissors gripped by gnarled fingers, ‘SULLY’ let fly on the terrified clients already minimum regrowth.

CHOP, CHOP…SLICE, SLICE…CUT, CUT….HEADS BANG BANG ON THE LAMMIE TABLE…EARS UNDER SCISSOR ATTACK…CHOP, CHOP…NECKS TWISTED…CUT CUT…EYES UNDER SCISSOR ATTACK…SLICE, SLICE…HEADS BANG BANG ON TABLE…NECKS UNDER CLIPPER ATTACK…CLIPPERS GOUGING…BLOOD CURDLING WHIRR WHIRR…BLOOD SEEPAGE……SILENCE…..HEADS WRENCHED TO UPRIGHT POSSIES……

IT WAS OVER. CLIENTS STUMBLE TO BEDROOMS FOR SHOCK-INDUCED REPOSE.

It was always difficult turning up to school after being ‘Sullied’.

BUT, I don’t blame my classmates for getting off on my misfortune, having a laugh.  Wouldn’t you? If a young Friar Tuck (minus charisma and with obvious gender issues) turned up on a regular basis?  

(cr:Laughing Squid: flickr)

******In THE ARTS: National Pom Pom Festival Director, The Ginger Man, is still ingratiating himself to his driver (the incredibly tiresome), Miss Honeysuckle (’Hockey Sticks’) Weeks She’ll let him down, Oh yes she will…..

The Fat Lamb Chronicles continue in the comments section……

Today, something new. No questions. You lot ignore them anyway which I think is terribly creative…..
Instead, some key words to get us all thinking – and COMMENTING.  They are: Sully, Hair, Unfortunate, Artist, Arthritis. Ignore if ya want. Just report in with news (ugly and comforting) on your front…..

******ALL commenters go for it!! Just click on the ‘comment’ thingo and follow the simple instructions. The place to write your gems is at the bottom of the last published comment. *A little bit of counsel for people new to this caper. Your email (just called ‘mail’ in this case) address does NOT come up on site. And just ignore the URL thingo – just ignore it.

MANY years ago, I crept back to Australia from London…..mad as a buzzard after a disastrous attempt to exhume what I’d believed to be a deeply significant romance……

I could have sat around apportioning blame but that is NOT my way.

Instead, I placed my faith in geography, quickly securing what was advertised as a three-month (MORE if you like it) reporting position on the organ of record in the lead smelting capital of the world, Port Pirie.

cr: yewenyi: flickr

I drove my small sedan into Port Pirie feeling free and confident. Why wouldn’t I? Prestigious position, accommodation provided….

Here I am! Made it! New life! HANG ON!

Why are the windows of my executive suite smashed and why is the front door blowing in the wind? DON’T GET NERVY. Better take a look inside….Dirty carpet, dirty bed, dirty pictures on the wall…..power points smoking and sparking, stalactites and stalagmites of mould throwing up interesting shadows AND neighbours obviously brought very low by Tourette’s Syndrome.

***** You, No, you go **** yourself. You’re a ******* idiot. ****You. Some ****wit’s moved in next door. ****’em   ( You get the ******* picture?)

After a long night (I slept with a mascara wand under my pillow ready to poke the eyes out of maniacs entering the executive suite unannouced) I fought my way through the rusted car bodies, burnt out fridges and two ravenous alsatian/rottweiler mongrels tearing up the backyard. 

Soon enough, I presenting myself to Ken, the Managing Director of The Port Pirie Recorder. 

Hello Ken, how much do you play for THAT dive?

Forty dollars a week Miss Ross – everything in order?

NO Ken (Gee, you’re a little guy, there’s NOT much of you…) NOTHING is in order. Now just give me that forty dollars and I’ll subsidise my own digs….

I was to learn though that executive rentals in Port Pirie were impossible to secure. And so it was I ended up at Mrs Brown’s boarding house on Eighth Avenue (between Seventh and Ninth Avenue), West Pirie. 

Mrs Brown’s rates for lodgings and food were very reasonable. Back then, West Pirie housed above-ground cement pools of tailings left from when Port Pirie treated uranium from the nearby Radium Hill. Security around the deadly dams was tight: One cyclone fence and one sign: At Least TRY And Stop Your Kids Swimming In The Radioactive Waste.  

Anyway, there I was ensconced in a cosy cottage on Radioactive Avenue…….

Mrs Brown was a gentle soul whose life project was to see how far she could push the limits of lard. We enjoyed lard pancakes fried in three inches of lard, crumbed lamb chops done in a stove top vat of perpetual lard (you just scrape the bad bits off KJ and top it up…) and even lard-based patty cakes. 

Our biggest lard fest was Wednesdays - Dallas and Cyril night.

Cyril, who arrived huffing and puffing on his push bike, was Mrs Brown’s long-term boyfriend. We watched Dallas with trays of lard treats on our knees. Cyril always stayed over. Sensible. It would have been dangerous for a man of his age to peddle home with four kilos of lard setting in his stomach.

I liked it at Mrs Browns.

But then the outside world came crashing in, rendering us all shell-shocked…….

Firstly, Mrs Brown nearly wrote herself (and her her much-loved Ford Escort) off when she ploughed into a vehicle while dreaming of what she’d do with lard that night.

She spent several days in teary state, propped up in bed wearing a fetching mauve and hot pink knitted bed jacket. THEN, when recovery was imminent, I had to break the news (don’t forget I was working as a reporter) that fire had swept through the motor vehicle repairer’s premises, destroying the Ford Escort. KAPUT!

Mrs Brown folded. She knew that bad things always happened in threes – she’d had two shocks in quick succession and was just waiting, waiting for the third. I could do nothing. Cyril was at a loss. Mrs Brown was too terrified to do anything, go anywhere. She’d figured out that by staying in bed, she could at least TRY to avoid the Trifecta-Of-Doom.

With the lard queen cowering in bed, I took over the cooking. I still respect the power of solid fats.

Mrs Brown was still not herself by the time I drove out of Port Pirie with my lead, yellowcake and cholesterol levels ALL through the roof. Dear Cyril stood by his sweetheart: You just gotta pull yaself together love, you just gotta……

The last I saw of Mrs Brown was though my rear vision mirror as I drove slowly along Radioactive Avenue enroute to Leeton. She was in her nightie and bed jacket, waving and throwing air kisses.

I don’t know what happened next……..

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Alrightee! Away we go…….tell us about lovely people you’ve met in unexpected situations. Has anyone stayed in an old-fashioned boarding house….(you must be getting on!) Have you arrived in a place all on your lonesome…….AND things are NOT quite what you imagined? Did you freak out or grow up? Have you been to Port Pirie – it’s an unusual place, isn’t it (I liked it but maybe you didn’t) What makes for a COSY living situation. Why do we under-rate the power of COSY? And if there’s anything happening in your neck of the woods, we NEED to know……we do…yes we do…….

BONUS! The Ginger Man has a dream:

Australia’s first ever National Pom Pom Festival.

Cr: janed42:flickr

*******The excitement is unfolding in the comments section**********

******ALL commenters go for it!! Just click on the ‘comment’ thingo and follow the simple instructions. The place to write your gems is at the bottom of the last published comment. *A little bit of counsel for people new to this caper. Your email (just called ‘mail’ in this case) address does NOT come up on site. And just ignore the URL thingo – just ignore it.

Good morning!

Everything in order here in my modest digs…..only ONE part of my daily routine left to execute.

And that is to DISMANTLE THE DRAGNET around my front door……

The dragnet consists of two antique anodised steel chairs lifted as keepsakes from the headquarters of the once mighty Leeton Redlegs Australian Rules Football Club.

You know the chairs. Red or green. And  they’re still keeping orthopaedic surgeons busy. It’s a Four Corners just waiting to happen because the hundreds of thousands of community-minded folk who spent large parts part of their lives plonked on them all did their backs and bums in. 

But for me, those same bum breakers represent security, the last line of defence between me and the Unthinkable……..

BECAUSE I HAVE LIVED THROUGH IT AND I’M NEVER GOING BACK……..

One night – like all other nights – I went to bed - nude and alone, ready to sleep the sleep of the twitchy, the naturally nervy.

The very next thing I’m aware of…….

The bang of the front door closing behind me. Nude KJ OUTSIDE the door on the landing.

FOR KJ HAS HAD HER FIRST (AND ONLY EXPERIENCE) OF SLEEP-WALKING.

PLEASE read on: This is NOT gratuitous. (cr:camil tucan: flickr)

To recap: KJ is: (1) Nude (2) Disorientated (What time is it?/Gee, my stomach needs bit of work/I’ve heard about this sort of thing on ‘Life Matters’ (3) Blind (NO seeing eye appliances/close up or long shot) (4) Incommunicado (NO mobile/NO pigeon/NO sempahore) (5) Penniless (and has nought to barter with) (6) Pitifully Alone  (Why, oh why didn’t I smile at the neighbours? Thus ensuring I’d be comfortable enough to present nude in front of husbands in the middle of the the night…..?)  (7) Vulnerable (WELL, WHAT DO YOU THINK?!).

I cowered in the stairwell - in a breech birthing position – for what seemed like six months.

THEN, ACTION STATIONS: THE PLAN……

After feeling my way down the stairs, I stuck my head into the recycling bin, grabbing handfuls of the Sydney Morning Herald’s classified section. Wondrous symmetry because soon, THE broad was wrapped in a broadsheet. Target? A dear friend who lived (the broad estimated) eight-minutes away (with glasses) but anything up to 45 (taking into consideration the newspaper, lack of glasses and out-of-control nerves). 

……I ran, I ran, I RAN into the darkness and lots of other things. Pages of motoring advertisements and funeral announcements flying off my trembling body. Falling down. Picking myself up. Scratching my bum in repetitive fraught strokes.

But Miss Adrenaline was on the move…… And Miss Adrenaline was going to live……

……Up though the alley way at the back of the Catholic Church (Please God, please keep safe your nude and very worked up daughter)……up thingos and down thingos, hanging off thingos, feeling thingos and recoiling in horror, slipping off thingos…..AND THEN,  the horror final stretch – a deserted park where bad things had happened before, even to fully-clothed, fully-sighted citizens.

GO IN THERE MISS ADRENALINE, GO IN THERE………

And go in she did. Then suddenly, a voice from the mist. South African: Afrikaan.

YOU CANNOT GO RUNNING AROUND THE PARK WITH ONLY A NEWSPAPER ON. YOU CANNOT DO THIS…..YOU CANNOT GO RUNNING AROUND…..

Suddenly, Miss Adrenaline’s demeanour changed. Survival mode at its most mysterious. Miss Adrenaline could NOT see the approaching voice. No matter. Her words came thick and fast:

I CAN GO WHERE I BLOODY WELL LIKE. NO ONE TELLS ME WHERE I CAN GO. YOU USED TO BE ABLE TO TELL PEOPLE WHERE TO GO……NO MORE, NO MORE. STEP ASIDE, STEP ASIDE….!!

Park Man actually turned out to be very sweet. Just cooling off after a long shift at a busy city steakhouse. He had with him a full red apron with the word SIZZLING on it, just at groin level. I put the apron on (my bum shaking out the back of it) and he accompanied me to my friend’s place.

Knock, knock….(4am)

(Friend) What now KJ, what now…….?

* I returned the apron to Park Man. Gave him a box of chocolates and two hand towels which Gwennie had put magnificent knitted edges on. Neither of us said much.

Understandable. Even I have barely spoken of the woeful sequence of events of that night….until now……..

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Well, I feel okay now. What about you? Do you HAVE to be in control? You’ll come unstuck….yes you will….just like I did……Your biggest and best out-of-control experience? What did you learn? Are you a sleepwalker? Or do you just enjoy doing bad things and say it’s because of somnambulism? AND if anything strikes you as vaguely interesting about your life, do report in or they’ll close us down. NOTHING is too small …….believe me you….

THE GINGER MAN is still enjoying the bush hospitality afforded by the locals at The Fat Lamb Hotel - follow his escapades in the comments section. God Bless The Ginger Man!!!

(cr: capn mad matt: flickr)

******ALL commenters go for it!! Just click on the ‘comment’ thingo and follow the simple instructions. The place to write your gems is at the bottom of the last published comment. *A little bit of counsel for people new to this caper. Your email (just called ‘mail’ in this case) address does NOT come up on site. And just ignore the URL thingo – just ignore it.