KerrieJean.com

You know those quirky little media stories?

…..The ones that are supposed to brighten up your miserable day or make you feel ‘gee whizz, this ‘ere world sure is an aaamaaazing place……’

Usually [in the interests of professional pride] I wouldn’t point to one……

You can thank my first chief-of-staff, the passionate newsman, the late Mister Peter Cullen, of Wollongong’s flagship tabloid, The Illawarra Mercury, for that…..

”Now nervy Cadet KJ, how many times have you seen a wire service screamer along the lines of  ’six missing trekkers in deepest darkest Africa have been cut out of the belly of an obviously overweight python which terrorised an unnamed village, overnight?’

……”They run that one every six months or so nervy Cadet KJ when things get quiet……..

“On the other hand, you’re in the business of TRUTH…….

“By the way, if you’ve got a moment nervy Cadet KJ check out those reports of a three-headed mastiff bulldog stalking the Dapto Shopping Centre after midnight……..”

HOWEVER, a little story from Fairfax via deepest, darkest Scandinavia has got me very excited indeed.

“A Finnish couple have won the country’s annual wife carrying competition for the third year in a row.  Forty six year old lawyer, Taisto Miettinen, with his partner Kristitina Haapanen’s legs wrapped around his head, sprinted 235 metres, leaping hurdles and negotiating a water pool, in one minute.”

What I’m proposing is this:

A colossal charity fundraising event – held on the same day in every Australian city, regional centre and hamlet - where single people of all sexualities aged 40 or more carry their latest date, with legs wrapped around their heads,  for as far as they can.  

The event will be called ‘Date Pride’.

‘Date Pride’ will serve a dual purpose.

Raise not inconsiderable funds for the House With No Steps ['bout time they got some!] and  unequivocally demonstrate to the nation that getting a date when you’ve over 40 IS possible.

Imagine…….

Forty-years-old-and-much-over men and women, men and men and women and women who’ve been on at least one date together seen in erotic though hard-to-achieve embrace in their thousands on the streets, lanes, by-passes, cul de sacs, boulevards and old Cobb and Co tracks of Australia.

‘Date Pride’………..

I can see the story now:

”A Sydney-based couple, Barbara Stevens and Warren Curtis, have amazed ‘Date Pride’ organizers by ending up in Perth.

“Barbara Stevens, with Warren Curtis’s legs wrapped around her head,  constantly ignored ‘Date Pride’ marshals’ pleas to ‘pull over’…..

“Barbara, aged 52, told reporters that Warren had been her first date for nine years……..

” There was NO way I was ever gonna let him out of my sight, ” she said.

“Walking to Perth with Warren’s legs around my head was the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”

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Gee, I think I’ve got something!

Is ‘Date Pride’ a good idea?

Would you sponsor couples [say a dollar per 50kms] participating in ‘Date Pride’?

[And please, please don't tell me you've got compassion fatigue.........now is NOT the time]

Report in by:

Just clicking on the ‘comment’ thingo and following 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.

If this wasn’t the worst way to end my week……

…….Which, quite frankly, already hadn’t been what you’d describe as  ’stellar’……..

The email from kerriejean.com field correspondent, Roma Street, was tagged ‘urgent’ -  its brevity only adding to the drama:

KJ – I read in *’The Irrigator’ that Leeton has just become the proud possessor of its first set of traffic lights.

What do you make of this development?

[*Award-winning bi weekly newspaper of my hometown in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, Murray-Darling Salinity Basin, NSW]
http://www.irrigator.com.au/news/local/news/general/towns-first-traffic-lights-are-installed/2212227.aspx

For all on the Pacific Rim and in the Free World this is what I make of it, this is what I make of it…………..
I am sad, angry, confused, fearful, perplexed, nervy, twitchy, itchy, hollow, all-at-sea and feeling in need of a facelift before my time………….

[Is there no amber in life? cr: US National Archives: flickr]

WHAT NEXT?

A Dan Murphy’s emporium on the site of the historic Temperance Union Hall……..?

…A  soccer ball the size of the Hindenberg flat bang in the middle of the historic Leeton Redlegs Australian Rules Football Club rooms?

……An Aldis superstore on the site of my historic adolescent groping site, the Roxy Theatre….? 

God help me.

God help my hometown.

*And thank you Chadwick for this missive……if there’s one time I need some philosophical ponderings it is now……….

‘The emergence of traffic lights in Leeton is a national disgrace.

Before, we had a fair rule for all: give way to the right or die….

Give way to the right was obeyed, drunk or sober.

Now wankers will say: I was just crossing on the amber.

Amber?

There is no amber  in life.’

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Oh dear, dearie me………

A terrible start to the weekend………

Please tell me: do you feel old too? 

Is there really no amber in life?

Tell me……..do it by…….

Just clicking on the ‘comment’ thingo and following 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.

Last night I dreamt I went to Combe House  again.

……Via Devon, via Exeter, via Honiton, via the village of Gittisham……

……..All via a catastrophic London romance which sent me fleeing into the windswept counties desperate for psychosexual balance - and a Qantas seat home.

1981.

And my Gap Year had morphed into a Grand Caynon where my Broken Spirit swung from side to side on the flimsiest of Heart Strings.

The advertisement in the Earl’s Court vegemite shop provided immediate succour.

Wanted: Young strapping Aussie gal ripe for adventure and the experience of appalling wages.

*A once in a full Lunar eclipse opportunity to live and work in an historic slice of Devon.

Duties: Silver service waitressing in a restaurant with [Unfairly] No Hats.

Perks: Six quid a week, own bed in historic stables, mob cap, frilly full apron.  

I arrived with only a backpack full of broken dreams and the telephone number of the Qantas booking people to ring immediately when finances permitted.

Combe House emerged from the mist like an Elizabethan gorilla.

A fine, young, charismatic New Zealander who’d quickly been promoted to Antipodean Staff Superintendent showed me around the 2,300 rooms not counting conservatories.

Brett said not to worry if I thought the eyes of a particularly mentally tortured Combe House ancestor were moving in his portrait in the entrance hall.

Because they were….

…..They always did.

The silver service restaurant with [Unfairly] No Hats was where fat judges on the Exeter circuit and their bumilic wives [younger by at least 40 years] gorged on [the judges] or threw up [wives] 15 course bacchanalian feasts.

Nothing from the stags was wasted……..

…….Stag testicle pate, antler soup with stag ear croutons, stag fillet with stag tongue patties…….

In my mob cap and full frilly apron I hovered around tables…….singing the praises of stag and retrieving my runaway silver service peas from the laps of guffawing codgers.

My favourite part of the night was pushing the pudding trolley around.

[The elephant in the dining room:cr: State Library NSW: Sam Hood: flickr]

And what would you be having from my fine pudding trolley Sir and Madaaaaaaaam?

Turning my back on Sir and Madaaaaaaaam to retrieve the Mattercreamhorn or the Combe Creme Crescendo, I’d stuff a couple of whatevers in my mouth - gulp, gulp – and turn around.

Here we are, Sir and Madaaaaaaaam……  

It all became too much.

…….Investigations into why my pudding trolley’s receipts did not add up……

….The realisation that I’d be pushing my pudding trolley around until at least September, 1989, to secure even a cat crate on Qantas to get home.

……….Constant sniping from the Head Waiter that my silver service skills were at the level of copper alloy at best……

……….Bum pinching codgers so rude they weren’t even prepared to leave a tip for what I considered a rare privilege……..

On a dark and stormy night a taxi waited at the end of Combe’s long drive.

After scurrying up it [disguised as a badger] I flung myself at the driver.

‘I’m escaping!’

He was a kind and understanding gentleman.

‘As long as you pay the fare love, I don’t care what ya doin’….’

[**For readers for whom the words 'Downton Abbey' mean nowt click  'ere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downton_Abbey]

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Well, well, well……lots to discuss………

Was I guilty of downright irresponsibility?

Please don’t say ‘yes’ because then I’ll feel bad for at least half an hour and that’s not the way I like to live.

What sort of shocking jobs did you have in Britain or on the Continent when you were full of hope……..and frantically saving for a Top deck tour to the Black Forest?

I don’t know about you but the contemporary ‘Gap Year’ doesn’t seem like much fun.

Apparently, it’s all about planting trees in Africa or somesuch…….giving back. When I was 20 I had NOTHING to give back….nothing at all…….

Looking forward to hearing from you. It’s easy to give back…..do it by:

Just clicking on the ‘comment’ thingo and following 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.

So….there’s these two nobodies in Canada refusing to reveal the sex of their latest addition.

Big deal!

Those of us of a certain age – and sigh, gender - have already witnessed another great ’gender non-specific’ experiment.

And it failed miserably……..

[And how is it today? cr: Musee McCord Museum: flickr]

Here’s what happened.

Feminism decreed that tickling dolls’ tummies and always being the nurse when playing [the now outlawed] ‘Doctors And Nurses’ set women up for systemic oppression.

So forward thinking parents in the 1970s/80s went all out to avert the horror once and for all.

For Christmas and birthdays, girls were given plastic machetes, chainsaws and ak47s.

Boys?

Fairy wings, The Complete Works of Margaret Fulton and Ajax/Wettex gift packs.

Eugenics gone mad……resulting in…….

…….Bizarre birthday parties where girls tried to dress up machetes and cuddle chainsaws  - and boys tore each other apart in fairy wing and Ajax/Wettex gift pack fights.

In the interests of their personal safety [and the integrity of new renovations], most parents called a halt to the experiment quickly.

No one talks about it anymore.

Strange, eh?

*By the way –  in the main - I wasn’t brought up to be either a boy or a girl.

I was brought up to be a Sinner.

And as a young Catholic Sinner, I certainly knew *what I was and *where I was going.

*Depraved.

*Hell.

Just in case you don’t know about our Canadian man and woman.

http://www.news.com.au/world/canadian-couple-kathy-witterick-and-david-stocker-want-baby-to-choose-its-own-sex/story-e6frfkyi-1226062395217#ixzz1NnPtl9N6

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Isn’t life strange?

……Strange but strangely predictable?

Are you involved [at any level] in the gender wars?

Are you winning?

Would love to hear from you……….perhaps you even gave a chainsaw to your girl child some decades back……..and now she’s a tree cutter in the Tasmanian Wildnerness……..

Do report in by:

Just clicking on the ‘comment’ thingo and following 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.

Is one just not enough?

Have just returned from my daily unconstitutional with this alarming observation…..

Multiple births are not only de rigueur: they’re the norm…..

And from the number of dual carriageway prams on my main street [being jogged along by 45 kilo 45-year-olds in Olympic cycling team lycra] conception by traditional means, is over.

[........Do you take this man, woman, indeterminate to have and to hold and from this day forth, promise to embark on all the IVF treatments it takes to have at least two children in one go...?]

It wasn’t always like this…..

I am the product of sex and when I was growing up in Leeton, Murray-Darling Basin, the Pacific Rim in the 1960’s, there were many, many children from similar backgrounds.

And everyone knew the couples who ‘could not have children’ because even though they’d been married for more than nine months, they didn’t have any.

People were deeply compassionate towards couples who ‘could not have children’.

And working out just whose fault it was, was very important.

[Cr: Oregon State University Archives: flickr]

….It’s him/it’s a blockage/it’s her/it’s a twisted something/it’s both/it’s a blockage and a twisted something/ it’s God’s will/ there’s no blockage or twisted something……..

No one dared ask the couple who ‘could not have children’ what the problem was…..

That’d be rude……

I liked the couples who ‘could not have children’.

They were always snazzily turned out and could afford to go on P&O Cruises to exotic places on the Pacific Rim.

They were very dignified and even pinched each others’ bums in public.

In restrospect, I wonder how many of them could have children but didn’t want any.

……Perhaps with the prevailing mood, best to let the talk of blockages and twisted things go unchecked.

And for those couples who did want kids but found the quest elusive and did not have access to technologies to change the situation, good on you…..

You moved well through my town……

And try as they will, the Fecundity Police could never catch ya!

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Those of us of a certain age all remember those special couples I speak of, don’t we?

Perhaps you were even part of one of them……

Would love to hear from you…..on this or any other front…….

It’s free, it’s easy……how about you throw caution to the wind – and DO it now by:

Just clicking on the ‘comment’ thingo and following 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.

The Shroud of Turin, the Eureka Flag, the canopy from the last Spitfire ever made [saw it on the Antiques Roadshow], the Leeton Redlegs jumper worn by the greatest Australian Rules player the Riverina ever produced, Des Lyons…..

Priceless artefacts?

Most certainly.

However, I too have something very superdooper.

My curatorial notes say:

‘On KJ’s alluring bed there is a huge bespoke spread consisting of several hundred squares of winter fabric.

The fabrics are a magnificent pastiche of obscenely bright wools, foxy flannels, titillating tweeds………

….The superb spread consists of offcuts from the hundreds of superb outfits the country artist, Mrs ’Goucho’ Gwennie Ross, made for her five daughters over a period of some 15 years.’

['The quilt dreamer': cr: George Eastman House: flickr]

I’ll let you into a little secret….

I never have dreams or, for that matter, nightmares, in winter……..

No point.

They’d be superfluous for as I snuggle down, the hopes, fears [and dare I mention, occasional sinful behaviour?] of five Catholic girls literally weighs heavily on me…….

****The purple velvet  squares were Merrilee’s outrageous *gauchos. 

So taken was a studious Leeton High School pupil by the outlandish gauchos, he proposed somewhere between the canary yellow wool squares [poncho] and the lime flannel squares [micro mini with pom pom hem].

****The fluoro flannel squares were Julie’s 43-inch-wide flared pants with matching cape. So intrigued was a Leeton High School romantic he spent long days perched on our fence hoping to catch a glimpse of the ’fox in fluoro’. 

When our fox moved into the soft green garbardine squares [modest pinafore with detachable collar] our fence sitter quickly moved on. 

****The restrained mauve wool squares were Kaye’s Catholic Ball gown. It’s a wonder she survived the night so tight and high was its ‘Vatican inspired close-fitting, high-necked’ feature.

But, by the time she’d moved into the hot tangerine twill squares, things had changed. Her impending marriage had given her much needed breathing space and new found zest.

****The sizzling pink merino squares were Frank’s tilt at sophistication, *gouchos with matching bolero.

However, after turning up at a school dance where everyone, on her arrival, shout Ole! Ole!, she quickly moved into the sombre tweed squares. 

Despite this, Gwennie’s obsession with *gouchos went up a notch: ‘It’s all tweed and gouchos now. Ole!’

****The bright red and blue squares were my hotpants overlayed with a full split skirt….. 

A sensational ensemble which never really got off the ground.

When I arrived at the school formal, a nun with a big red, angry [square] face rushed out of the throng with needle and thread and proceeded to sew up the front of my skirt.

By the time I’d catapulted myself  into the vermillion and hot mustard squares, I was out of the Catholic school system – and back into hotpants.

And very pleased.

So, thank you Gwennie.

Seamstress to the starlets…….

And like all great artists…..controversial, single-minded in vision – and, quite frankly, sometimes very strange……

* I have no idea why Gwennie was such a fan of the gaucho.  

But I do know this….

Pleas along the lines of: ‘Look Gwennie it’s a school dance, not a shoot out,’ always fell on deaf ears.’ 

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So, let’s mark the not inconsiderable achievements of our mothers……

I’m not one but I sure as hell am thankful that I’ve got one – and just didn’t turn up out of the blue.

And here’s to all the old style seamstresses – craftswomen of the highest order – even if they did push their singular visions a little too hard on occasions.

There’s a whole hidden history of  ’at home couture’ in Australia – if you’ve got personal experience, please report in…….

Easy to do…….

Just by clicking on the ‘comment’ thingo and following 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.