Email to:Riverina Blanket Of Fear!
My legs are very skinny and they come complete with nobbly knees that just can’t help ‘emselves. Particularly when their favorite song comes on the radio: Crack. Time Is A Crack, Saddler, Crack, Tenterfield Saddler…. CRACK, CRACK, CRACK!!
I also have to be extra careful when shaving: there’s only half a dermis between me and raw bone. One wrong move and it’s a splatter movie……
(cr: Nikonastik: flickr)
From the ages of 12 until, well, last month, my skinny legs were not so much vessels of conveyance, but sources of great pyschosexual angst.
To display them was to die.
Even happy events could turn sour at a moment’s notice.
*Demonstration skinny legs driven phobic episode.
Stinking hot Assembly. St Francis College, Leeton, 1971. Fundraising raffle in pursuit of new mosquito nets for missionaries being eaten alive in Papua New Guinea.
Prize: Two donated Onkaparinga Satin Trimmed Pure Wool double bed blankets.
Oh Yeah (I think) as Mr Manchester Emporium ( ’Nine Confessions A Week’) gets thanked for his largesse. The truth? These are blankets that no-one not under the influence of psychotropic substances would ever buy: the brightest of brightest oranges. Great for a jumpsuit (I think) but definitely NOT playing well in the bedrooms of Leeton.
Sister Mary McKillya – the meanest operator on the meanest block in the Riverina – with loud hailer pointing to the sky, draws the raffle.
Looks like (I think) those fat cheeked cherubs blowing horns in holy pictures….
And the winner is:
Gwennie Ross, well done Gwennie….(All the time thinking: Gwennie Ross, Non Catholic. RE-draw, RE-DRAW, RE-DRAW!)
Kerrie Jean Ross, please come up and collect these wonderful Onkaparinga Satin Trimmed Pure Wool double-bed blankets.
From the back stalls: NO!
Everyone turns to look. My white, skinny legs cannot go ’out there’. Particularly on a designated sports uniform day: White top underpinned by a bra doubling as a straight jacket, all-over elasticised blue shorts overlayed by a blue skirt which Gwennie has made a ‘bit longer’ so the Dunlop volleys hanging off ‘those skinny, binny legs’ won’t ‘come as such a shock…’
Kerrie Jean Ross, I am asking you to come and get these blankets….
NO!
To give everyone their due, this is an unprecedented raffle situation.
Come and get the blankets Kerrie Jean!
NO!
The quadrangle has become the site of The Great Riverina Blanket Stand Off.
Sister Mary McKillya, who’s now clutching the stiff plastic blanket package close to her heaving bosom, knows now that the Onkaparingas will not be claimed without an ugly physical encounter.
And (I think, she thinks) ‘we’ don’t want that, do we?
Sister Mary McKillya makes her way through rows of boys and girls who thought they’d turned out for a raffle only to have something equally exciting and perplexing unravel.
Here Kerrie Jean, take the Onkarparinga Satin Trimmed Pure Wool double-bed blankets. TAKE THEM HOME…..
I did. As fast as my skinning legs could carry me….
* Some context. Visitors in here would know that my rented digs (compliments of a burst water heater) have morphed into a floodplain. I inherited the famous bright orange Onkaparinga Satin Trimmed Pure Wool double-bed blankets years back when Hec and Gwennie went doona crazy. Post flood, they’re now stuck in my glory box which I cannot prise open because of something called wood warp. So, while I write, the condition of my favourite bourdoir accoutrements remains unknown.
* It’s be great to hear from you - even if you’ve got the best set of pins on the Pacific Rim. Exactly WHO says so anyway? Perhaps you have some gems centring on the poignant – and perturbing – ability of teenagers to feel, smell and touch life-threatening humiliation on an hour to hour basis. And anything else of course……..what’s going on in your universe? Stars or bloody meteors ALL round? (Did I really write that!) Your turn now……
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.
Tags: tenterfield saddler
Prawn Cutlet Award
February 22nd, 2010 at 9:13 am
More blanket talk…?
Safe sex for oldies? You gotta be kiddin’.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/sexy-seniors-need-to-play-it-safe-20100220-ompd.html
Dear Chadwick,
Look on the bright side. At your age you’re spoiled when it comes to choice of Grim Reaper. KJ.
February 22nd, 2010 at 9:26 am
Now, listen to me, Scout…
Those legs were not made to be ashamed of.
They do their job, just like God assigned them to do. Don’t they let you climb trees, and run after the other children?
Even when they get scratched and need a spot of iodine, they still function, don’t they, Scout?
One day, I assure you, boys will look at those legs and admire them.
Right now, God has given them to you to have fun. So go to sleep now, Scout. Everything will be fine. Not every girl sleeps under Onkaparingas, not even the princess who slept on a pea.
All right Daddy…..
And I think that Gwennie (underneath) thinks my legs are good.
And me and my legs sure have a lot of adventures!
You sleep good too Daddy….(yawn).
Scout.
February 22nd, 2010 at 2:36 pm
There’s always a Dame, and this was a Mildewed Madame.
She was a case of a Million Hair Dryers……
February 22nd, 2010 at 2:40 pm
I have had those Onkaparingas since Mom and Pop, she said.
Ya gotta help me, Mister Barlowe.
This is a dry argument in a wet situation, I said, ordering a JB from Art’s Bar and Grill, and plunking in a nickel for another blast of Mahler.
February 23rd, 2010 at 9:53 am
Could IT evolve from moisture, plus heat and nutrition, from a discomfort in KJ’s flat into A MONSTER OF MOISTURE – The Fatal Fungus?
Read on, tune in again…..
Dear The Ginger Man,
I have vacated the Digs Of Tears And Mildew – everything is warping, including my skinny legs.
The odour? Foul, fouler, foulest………
For folks who don’t know what’s going on, my rented digs have been rendered a Murrumbigee floodplain courtesy of a burst hot water system.
If anyone has been through even a remotely similar experience and can provide words of comfort, advice, succour – don’t be shy – post NOW!
KJ.
February 23rd, 2010 at 10:49 am
All salvage efforts have now switched to my Special Occasions Knickers’ Drawer……
Can its contents be saved from the floodwaters?
Sydney awaits…….
February 23rd, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Announcing the new, stylised…
BREAKTHROUGH IN COMFORT…
You’ll Never Fear Again!
Approved for Government subsidy!
A must for Inner City Dwellers!
SLEEP WITH SERENITY…
DOZE WITHOUT DESPAIR…
It’s water proof, it floats…
Sixty Cubit, specially designed….
THE KJ ARK BED
(Will accommodate pairs of pets)
Available all reputable dealers.
Dear The Dude,
Thanks for the plug….
Currently I’m working with a young designer. In development? The tsunami proof Special Occasions Knickers’ VAULT.
KJ.
February 23rd, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Neath woollen comfort,
One is inclined to linger,
Charming skinny legs,
Under the Onkaparinga,
(Satin-Trimmed!)
Sleeping solitary…
Watching Mr Mal Meninga….
Until the waters came….
Helter skelter, helter skelter..
Taxi to a women’s shelter!
February 23rd, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Dear KJ,
My legs come with the description of ‘bandy’.
One of the neighbourhood wise women told my mum I needed to do exercises to force my knees closer.
Did they work?
No!
Never could keep those pins together……
Dear Megsy,
I haven’t seen a pair of young bandy legs for ages.
What do they do now? Straighten ‘em out at birth?
KJ.
February 24th, 2010 at 9:22 am
Channel Ten TV promo yesterday……
‘There are 100,000 homeless people. Tonight how one woman helps to make a difference….’
This viewer’s comment:
100,0001. And this one woman (KJ) can do bugger all at the moment.
Dear Chadwick,
Correct at the time of writing! KJ.
February 24th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
For a PI to take a nickel from government is not the way of a shamus…
Still I was interested in what Jimmy the Spook told me in Art’s Bar and Grill, Leeton about the Hot Water Systems of Mass Destruction.
Jimmy blamed it all on the Himalayans.
This gumshoe for government claimed they were installing the Systems under government rebate and ensuring that defects would soon flood all Australian homes and render them uninhabitable.
Get outta town, I said. Never heard anything more ridiculous. Next thing you’ll tell me Dames aren’t Dames…
Some of ‘em aren’t, Barlowe.
Get outta town!
If you believed Jimmy the Spook the exploding water heaters would disrupt the Nation’s sleeping patterns, ruin homes and cause plague from rotting beds, furniture and carpets. They were Hot Water Systems of Mass Destruction.
Get outta town!!!
The Art’s Bar and Grill phone jingle-jangled.
Sure enough, it was THE Dame.
You gotta help me, Mister Barlowe.
Some days are very long.
Am I right, or am I right?
February 25th, 2010 at 12:08 am
Two dimes are better than one.
I got to meet The Ginger Man in Art’s Bar and Grill, Leeton, to discuss a Security Matter.
Watch this space, kiddo.
February 25th, 2010 at 12:09 am
And two dames are better than one.
February 25th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
I worried bout KerrieJeanMissMeatTrayJesJokin.
Dear The Chief Monk,
Just quietly, a little spin or two for me WOULDN’T go astray.
Still, I’m back in my digs….after the flood.
Whowouldathought? NEW industrial strength bright blue carpet – I love it! (Even though some smart arse said it looked like a Centrelink office).
Bless you Mister Monk,
KerrieJeanMissMeatTrayJesJokin
February 25th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Business is slack……
No visitors to Art’s Bar and Grill, Leeton.
We need a FESTIVAL.
But what kind?
Therefore I awaiting eagerly the meeting between Barlowe PI and Lord Ginge.
What will they come up with?
February 25th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
On the 70th day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
A partridge having a wee.
On the 71st day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
One hot water system, and
A partridge having a wee.
On the 72nd day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
One bed a-floating,
One maid a-screaming,
Two Onkaparingas a-rotting,
Two bookshelves decaying,
One carpet a-smelling,
Two ashtrays a-sinking,
Two handymen a-swearing,
One kitchen a-mildewing,
One landlord a-groaning,
One computer a-blinking,
One hot water system a-broken,
One cab a-waiting, and
A partridge having a wee……
February 26th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
There’s probably a grill like ours in every whistlestop in the whole darned world.
From Colarado to Cootamundra….
Gee, I’d like to hear from some of ‘em. I started this joint because Dad, a Marine who fell in love here, told me about tacos, beans and chilli, eggs sunnyside…
I wonder what is happening in other necks of the woods? I get so lonesome here, I’m bustin’ insides.
Sometimes I think it’s not worth a hill of beans…..
Coffee, mister?
A FESTIVAL ON A STICK..
A grand total of two in Art’s Bar & Grill Leeton.
For me, the world is not coming up roses.
Not quantity, but quality as the two patrons are swell guys, Mr Barlowe PI and Mr G.I.N. German, scholar, filmmaker and adventurer.
The job of a barkeeper is to be attentive, but never an eavesdropper or a lug basher.
You take the dice as they roll…….
As Mister Barlowe says: Am I right or am I right?
For a long time neither of the two friends spoke, other than to order more refreshment: in Barlowe’s case JB, in The Ginger Man’s a shot of (locally produced) Absinthe.
Soon the bar was filled with the aromas of cigar smoke, Gitaines, Lucky Strikes and grain spirit and anisette.
Finally words emerged through the fog.
Bring back the trailer…
Build new Leetons throughout the world…
Peter O’Toole…
Dolly Parton…
Nana Mouskouri…
A KJ lookalike…
Enlist the Mayor again…
Perhaps we really do need film stocks this time?
Have another drink, old boy…..
I feel the impact of reality here…
A Festival is a thing of wonder…
We are not without resources, KJ can help…
(There’s always a Dame: am I right or am I right?)
Let’s find the TRAILER…
Art, did you give that Dame a job…?
FRIES WITH EVERYTHING MISTER BARLOWE… RINGS AND WINGS? TABASCO OR BARBECUE?
Sure, kiddo – barbecue…..
February 26th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
Love to help you clean up KJ but this weekend I am on a group event and then an important seminar on Monday.
Know you will understand!
Welcome Dr Roman Vournelis (Visiting Scholar from the University of Athens, Greece) presenting a seminar at the Bagel:
‘Not enough leg room: Mediterraneans, Retsina and the Making of the Greek economy.’
Wednesday, 3 March, 12-2, Bagel room, Building 623, Room 8.02.889.6
Bring your salad and join us for a soft drink from 12:00, leading into the seminar-workshop festival at 12:30.
Abstract: The seminar will explore a myriad of aspects on the idea of leg room emerging from the influential role played by Australia in the collapse of the Greek economy from the end of 2009 to 2010 and the inheritance of oldest and strongly grounded prejudices against Greeks and of imperial ideas on the inferiority (or non-humanness) of Greeks. In particular, it will investigate the influence exerted on the intellectual and political establishment by the theories of the inferiority of Southern Greeks articulated by the Greek Australian criminologist Christos Poulipous in 2004.
Please bring a gold coin donation.
Dear The Lonely Scholar,
I’ll tell you this: leg room at a premium in my post-flood digs at present!
‘The influential role played by Australia in the collapse of the Greek economy…!’ What EXACTLY is Dr Roman Vournelis getting at? That if people – like the grandparents of our dear poster Greek and loving it – had stayed in Greece and continued to buy olive oil and put down lots of cement the current crisis would have been averted……?
Some people!
The Bagel room? Why, why, why?
KJ.
February 26th, 2010 at 9:42 pm
This is a plain-speaking contribution – do you mind?
I’m thinking there are lots of talented folks who happpened to have skinny pins.
Sitting here happily retreating to some 60s sanity with the Beatles Anthology, I recall that you’d be hard pressed to find four sets of skinnier pins than the Fab Four.
Maybe it’s the case that when you have talent, apart from sporting prowess, nature just gives you skinny pins, or even non-descript pins!
Dear Hence The Hermit,
Plain speaking? In here it is as if it’s the air we breathe…….
Your theory is spot on. Gwennie tells me that I started life with chubby pins but as my cerebral talents developed in spectacular fashion they proceeded to get skinnier and skinnier.
By the time I turned up at Leeton High (the height of career as a genius) to sit my HSC, my pins were almost gone…..
Dare I ask? What are your leg dimensions?
KJ.
February 27th, 2010 at 10:32 am
Hi Hence,
How they hangin’?
If the Fab Four had marketed as The Skinny Pins would they have made it?
February 27th, 2010 at 10:35 am
Dear Lonely Scholar,
Southern Greek inferior?
They still speak Doric in the hills. See Wiki.
February 27th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Come on KJ, Leeton High as the height?
As we witness each new post punching fresh holes in the literary stratosphere, and then provoking all the geniuses above to do their thing…yeah, yeah, yeah!
My leg dimensions? How are you with complex numbers?
Hey there Dude. Things are hangin’ just fine thanks. As long as the hemp hammock’s hangin’ fine, I’m hangin’ fine.
No, I reckon The Skinny Pins would have peaked at the East Liverpool bowling alley, and we’d have had no Sergeant Pepper’s and no summer of love.
That’s another thing, why did the world experience only one summer of love?
It seems we were equipped for a lot more than that.
Why Mr Hence The Hermit,
Thanks for those kind words. I’ve never received encouragement from a hermit before. HOWEVER, many men have opted for such a lifestyle after things between them and me haven’t ended up all that peachy…..
I’m fine with complex numbers – one man + two pins + one hammock = one man with dormant pins. KJ.
February 28th, 2010 at 11:20 am
The use of the words ‘dormant pins’, versus say, ‘extinct pin’s makes your equation not only complex, but discretely complex.
It suggests both stasis and dynamism (where there’s life in pins – any pins really – there’s hope). Passive/active without being passive/aggressive. Very impressive!
And therein lies a lesson for hermits and potential hermits everywhere: ‘Look busy, or at least hint at being busy in the near future, when KJ’s around ya bums!’
Dear Mr Hence The Hermit,
Boy oh boy, the things that go whizzing around your head up there in the swingin’ hemp hammock……it is no less than a mini re-run of the 2020 Summit, yes it is……
As for having to appear busy when KJ is around, quite the opposite…..
As Hec always said to his youngest: ‘Arse parking is what you’re good at KJ……..’
Decades later, I’m at the HEIGHT of my arse parking powers. KJ.
February 28th, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Hello Hence.
Does your hammock have a decent mattress cover?
March 1st, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Hiya Greek, It’s autumn, black bile season for some, but for those living, loving, and learning in the Pacific Rim tradition, it’s always already almost summer.