KerrieJean.com

Made it!  I’m safe and well after Australia’s most dangerous (by far) 48-hour period, Christmas and Boxing Days.

And Gwennie has just issued her traditional December 27th orders:  Everyone just settle down now…..just settle.

Still, it gives me great pleasure to quote one of our Christmas attendees:

‘It was good this year, nothing went wrong.’

May I suggest though that ‘nothing went wrong’ because the more mature members of the family kept calm NO MATTER WHAT THE PROVOCATION.

Would you believe there’s a small, vocal sect operating within my family that votes National Party? How that happened when the biggest crop we’ve ever produced is two lousy petunias and a handful of chives I’ll NEVER know.

Traditional Sect Fare.

(cr: goodrob13:flickr)

Gwennie is equally perplexed:  It’s not as if they didn’t have a good start in life, it’s not as if idiocy runs in the family…

Anyway, our National Party sect members were very upbeat about recent events in Canberra: Colonel Ab Doman and Barney Google are in business so watch out! 

Gwennie (who’s now so deaf we’re communicating with Scrabble tiles):

What are those crazy NATS on about…..just what are they sayin’ NOW…..?

‘THEY ARE SAYING THAT WITH THE CHANGING OF THEIR SECT’S GUARD WE’D ALL BETTER WATCH OUT!!!’

Gwennie looks at our sect members STRAIGHT on: It’s NOT as if idiocy runs in the family…..

Silence. Similar cycle repeated in 10 minutes and every 10 minutes thereafter.

*I must say that Leeton’s been very quiet since good rain fell on Christmas eve. There’s nothing to whinge about.

However, many National Party sect members are SO programmed they remain on whinge cruise control. In churches and at Woolies you still hear:

If it doesn’t rain soon, we’ll have to eat the children. It’s THAT bad… 

Acquaintance:  But Kevin, it HAS rained.

Kevin: It’s just gotta rain or I’ll go stark raving mad (again).

Acquaintance: See ya Kevin.  And you and Trish enjoy that round-the-world trip EVERYONE knows is compliments of drought assistance…..

That’s it for now. Off to have a little lie down.  Hang on. Forgot to tell you. Everybody VERY surprised when a newborn turned up this Christmas. First baby in our family for 30 years BREAKING  what I thought was a tacit agreement: NO more procreation/ NO more trouble. Oh well, at least someone’s flying the flag for a sensual life…..

**So as we zoom towards another year, hope everything’s okay in your neck of the woods. Report in if you feel up to it – of course ya do!!

 All posters take a deep breath…..and 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.

Dateline: Irrigation Area Without Water: Leeton, NSW.

Arrived late yesterday…..

Immediately threw myself at the collective (ample) bosom of my family and was IMMEDIATELY reminded what makes it so, so very special:

THIS IS A FAMILY THAT PRIDES ITSELF ON ABSOLUTE NON-ADHERENCE TO THAT SACRED FAMILIAL TENET: UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.

Within an hour, I was under NO illusions that I’d have to work hard (and swifty) to achieve a modicum of respect before Christmas. Specifically:

* I have been told that my face will assume ’some clarity’ if I lose five kilos.

* I have been told that I have a ‘tendency to brow beat people’,  a personality flaw which impresses NO one.

*I have been told that on December 25 I will NOT be getting away with my traditional ‘ right up yourself’ refusal to peel prawns (’ NO peel, NO prawn’).

* And I have been told it’s so long since I brought a man home for Christmas there’s talk I’m amoebic. (Isn’t that the CRUELLEST thing you’ve heard all year?)

So, I have just four days to morph into something vaguely  ‘lovable’.

In the meantime, thank you to the fearless Editor of The Irrigator who in a startling opinion piece (Dec 18th) wrote:

…..Not that everyone can know everything, but it is really worthwhile checking information and thinking a bit before putting your mouth in gear and letting go…..

………Quite often people don’t even realise what they’re saying sounds like the ranting of a paranoid madman, or a broken record….

Speaking of broken records, I’ll put up KJ and Big Swifty’s hit Christmas single They’re You’re Bloody Family JUST IN CASE you’ve haven’t heard it.

click-to-hear-They’re-Your-Bloody-Family

Anyway, I’ll have to leave it at this today.  I’m tapping away in the Leeton Library and the queues to use the terminals are unbelievable. *The Library has the reputation for having the niftiest air-conditioning in town. Woolies comes in second.

* Thank you everyone who came in here this year and POSTED things. I declare our correspondents to be super dooper (you know that, don’t ya?). Keep reportin’ in – NO comments, NO blog, simple as that…

All posters take a deep breath…..and 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.

Would I be right to think that your Christmas is shaping up to be yet ANOTHER disaster?

You should be ashamed of yourself – 10 days out from celebrating the world’s ONLY Virgin Birth and you’re plonked on the divan immobilised. Oh yes, you’re VERY keen to grab those three public holidays generated by the VB Miracle but thus far, you’ve done precisely bugger all to mark it in a manner appropriate. 

So today, an early pressie from me to you: 

Hec’s old-style Christmas preps:  Time-saving and fun. Print off, follow to the last letter and (legs crossed) the Virgin Birth Celebrations 2009 at your place will be the talk of the town.

Hec: ‘It’s MANDATORY…. The Christmas Axe.’ (cr: DanCentury: flickr)

(1)  SECURE a free-range tree: Cost effective and flamboyant. Get The Christmas Axe, hop into your vehicle and proceed (under cover of darkness) to the nearest National Park. Hack down a beauty. Stuff  in boot. Treasure the looks of wonderment on small faces as you crash through the back door with the gigantic flora.  Slice 44 gallon drum in half. Excavate backyard. Fill drum. Plant tree. Position under gaping ceiling hole you carved out last year.

*Couldn’t understand all that fuss the Greenies made a while back about the so-called discovery of the Wollemi Pine. B*******!  Wollemis (great Christmas trees) have always been a dime a dozen in the sandhills near Narrandera.

(2)  NEVER tell kids that Santa exists. Gets ya into too much trouble. Concentrate on the in and outs of the Virgin Birth.  

(3) SOURCE fine Christmas produce from local providores. Christmas Eve should see you in the woodheap with five rice-pellet-force- feed chooks and The Christmas Axe. Grab chook’s neck, ram down on a log and let The Christmas Axe do the rest. *Kids love seein’ chooks run around backyards with their heads chopped off but don’t forget to add an educational plank to the spectacular proceedings:

‘And that’s what you’ll look like if ya don’t take it easy when you get ya P-Plates, that’s what’ll happen to you….’

(4)  ATTEND MIDNIGHT Mass: Get the whole bloody thing outta the way so you can concentrate on Christmas. Hark The Herald Angels Sing is your cue that things are wrappin’ up. Round up the kids and get the hell outta there. *The last thing A Man wants to do is stand outside Church sayin’ Merry Christmas to a bunch of hypocrites who’ve (all year) been yacking  behind ya back about ya questionable personal habits. 

(5) BE UP AND AT IT EARLY. Say ‘Merry Christmas’ to everyone… even the neighbours who told everyone who’d listen they saw ya get a WOLLEMI Pine out of the boot. Proceed to iceworks. Buy the biggest slab available to non-commercial customers. The challenge? To keep 72 bottles of Reschs Dinner Ale cold for 18 hours in 104 degree heat. Do your back in trying to get the ice out of the boot. Take The Christmas Axe. Attack the iceberg.

Start to enjoy yourself…….

* So, there you have it. Do yourself a favour:

Get off your bum right now and tell your loved ones: THIS year (like it or lump it) we’re doing Christmas Hec-style!

In the meantime, awaitin’ to hear from you…your traditional pre- Christmas crack-up is, of course, worth reporting in on but – as usual – so is everything else. New posters most welcome. I’ll rephrase that: TREASURED!

And….speaking of TREASURED…..just so happens I have the link here to an old favorite – last year’s hit Christmas single They’re Your Bloody Family.  (Little ole me and THEN manager Big Swifty)

*Was at yet another party on Saturday night and someone mentioned the song. Someone else (too much make up too much Spumanti) piped up:

You really can’t sing KJ,  you really can’t……

Well, I didn’t dignify THAT with a response. Some people just CAN’T help themselves……

click-to-hear-They’re-Your-Bloody-Family

Pic:Tracey Tromph.

(Another time, another place: Big Swifty and KJ In Happier Times)

*The Ginger Man*

All in all, probably his biggest week yet!

Right now, Lord Ginge, The Chief Monk, Nurse Try Do, Under The Table Top Man (UTTTM) and Godwin Grech are huddled in the cargo hold of  The Rev Kev’s RAAF jet  enroute to Copenhagen.

Before being secretly squashed into the cargo crate holding The Rev Kev’s ETS masterplans, Lord Ginge commented:

‘Tell everyone at kerriejean.com that it’s gonna be exciting AND exotic:  Wall-To-Wall VIKING……..how ’bout that!!!!!’

cr: han s’: flickr

And so it is – with the ‘Viking Volumes’ unfolding all week in our comments section. For those new to TGM (Ex-Bletchley Park, Ex- Trinity College, Dublin) he’s our mysterious Passion-Aggressive-Adventurer-In-Residence.  One day he just lobbed in - and stayed. Talk about all our Christmases coming at once…….

All posters take a deep breath…..and 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.

The Scene: Stinking hot fourth form classroom at St Francis College. Special event. A  joint presentation – by Sister Resurrection and Brother Crucifixion – titled: 

Marital RE-lations. Agree With Us Or Go to Hell.

cr: bitca:flickr

It is rousing stuff. Brother Crucifixion, in his heavy Marist Brother maxi dress, is so worked up he’s morphing into one big sweat stain.

Boy and girls, God is love but he WILL NOT tolerate it when that love is DE-based, abused…..  

…..Walk down Pine Avenue on any Saturday night and you’ll see degenerates from Leeton High School laughing and touching each other in THE REGION OF THE WAIST……

If you DO NOT respect YOUR waist region, no-one else will: NO-ONE!

Sister Resurrection’s face looks like the carpet in Lee’s Chinese Restaurant: white and yellow flecks with big ugly splashes of red. But by now, all eyes have switched to HER waist.

With both hands, Sister Resurrection is pushing down HARD on her 34lb nine-inch-wide leather belt from which is dangling a 47lb string of giant rosary beads. The rosary beads take on a life of their own – they’re bobbing up and down BELOW Sister Resurrection’s ample waist.

……Sister Resurrection edges closer to Brother Crucifixion.

Brother Crucifixion is right! Don’t make the fatal mistake of thinking ‘below the waist’ or ‘above the waist’.  Promise yourselves girls that no-one will ever go NEAR YOUR WAIST before (by all objective accounts) your VERY SCARY wedding night….

By now, Brother Crucifixion is alarming everyone: eyes bulging, focussing on no-one, nothing in particular. He’s now SO sweaty he looks like the poor semi-conscious man I once saw being pulled out of the Murrumbigee at Turkey Flat Beach.

And…..HE’S also pushing down hard on HIS 65lb leather belt from which is dangling a 102lb cross.

Brother Cruxifixion….pushing down and puffing…pushing and puffing……

In about two years you’ll find yourself on your wedding night at the Motel Deflowerment in Narrandera.

DID YOU KNOW that if your new husband finds out your WAIST REGION is NOT what he thought it was he will write to the Pope and have you ANNULLED, WIPED OUT, SENT BACK TO YOUR POOR MOTHER….

AND who’s gunna have a nervous breakdown when she has to walk around town returning all those crock pots  and punch sets?  YOUR MOTHER, THAT’S WHO!

(Loud gasps from the girls).

Sister Resurrection…..now pushing and puffing, pushing and puffing in harmony with Brother Crucifixion.

And what young man wants to cause HIS father a nervous breakdown when he tells him he’s had to write to the Pope because of a MAJOR WAIST PROBLEM which CANNOT be fixed?

(Loud gasps from the boys).

Suddenly, Sister Cruxifixion and Brother Resurrection stop pushing down hard on their belts and the rosary beads and cross return to their rightful possies.

As if in one voice: Sigh, sigh, sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh………………

*When I get home, I tell Gwennie that from now on, she is NOT to make me any more dresses that accentuate my waist region.

It’ll be boob tubes all the way.

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

I am all aware that it’s a very busy time of the year – filling in personal liability forms for staff Christmas parties, trying desperately to hide the awful truth from family and friends that you’re a climate change sceptic……protecting yourself from wandering waist headed hands…..

To say many you ARE SHATTERED is probably an understatement…. 

BUT, keep reporting in. Why? Because the other day I heard a visiting international social media expert say that a blog without comments is NO blog at all. Yikes!

*MR G.I.N German of Emissions Moving Pictures*

cr:daleberts:flicker

The sprawling masterpiece that is Gone With The (Passing Of ) Wind is NO where near finished……

Colonel Ab Doman, Miss Scarlett O’KJ, Miss Melanie and the Riverina’s most feared water smuggler, Mr Rhett ‘Wet’ Bubbler, are all stipped down to their waists in our comments section.

KINDLY A-VERT YOUR EYES!

After A-vertin’ 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.

*GONE WITH THE (PASSING OF) WIND

*Stop Press: Gone With The (Passing Of)  Wind now showing in comments section.

You should be avertin’ your eyes. (Cr: Rachellake: flickr)
 
A Story of Romance, Civil War, Intrigue, Heroics and Defence of Southern Riverina Culture………

*You will GASP at the GALLANTRY!

*You will THRILL to the CLASH OF ARMS!

*You will EMBRACE the beauty of Scarlett O’KJ, the Leeton Belle!

*Lovely Melanie, dainty damsel of the South, will STEAL YOUR HEART!

*Captain Rhett ‘Wet’ Bubbler - swashbuckling water pirate and smuggler of  Australia’s only Dry Irrigation Area - WILL HAVE YOU ON THE EDGE OF YOUR SEAT WITH HIS DERRING-DO!

*Colonel Tony ‘Six Pack’ Ab Doman, muscular leader of men at arms, WILL MAKE ALL LADIES SWOON as he uses his People Skills to bring the Gentlemen of the Riverina into battle against the Green Yankees who BURN GRONG GRONG AND ENDANGER A THREATENED CIVILIZATION OF GENTLEMAN CALLERS.

*Sensitive Captain Ashley Turnbull – fighting for his life after falling in a skirmish -  WILL CAPTURE THE HEART OF EVERY CARING WOMAN as veteran medical officer Dr Irville  ‘Tea Bags’ Hewson tries to bring him back from oblivion.

*A Screenplay by G.I.N. German.
*Produced by Emissions Films.

*Stop Press: Gone With The (Passing Of)  Wind now showing in comments section.

….Oh go ooooon nooow. YOU can still com-ment, oh yes yo cannnn……

******ALL correspondents  just take a deep breath and  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 .