KerrieJean.com

*Australia Day baring down on us all. Here’s what I wrote last year: STILL valid except my flag used to just cover my bum. 2010? Fat chance!

http://www.kerriejean.com.au/2009/01/does-my-bum-look-big-in-this-flag/#more-1984

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*Latest story.

Last night I dreamed I went to ‘Overdale’ again……

(cr: Kurt Cheistensen: flickr)

It is 1972.

While the nation grooves along to ‘It’s Time’, the nuns at St Francis College are hand picking twelve 15-year-old girls who it is deemed will benefit from a two-day retreat at the crucifix-adapted homestead ‘Overdale’ near Wagga. 

The twelve? Nine girls who like boys very much and aren’t afraid to show it.  Two who show an interest in and it is hoped soon will grow to LOVE a nun’s lifestyle and….me. 

I have been identified as Passive Resistant. Ghandi in a hitched up uniform. Hangin’ around school wavin’ a big mascara wand and a six pack of lippie:

‘Don’t come near me Sister. Swear ta God,  if ya do you’ll end up lookin’ like you should be sellin’ fairy floss at the Leeton Show….’

The ‘Overdale’ retreat rules are simple.  No talking. Minimal eating*.  In a brazen act, Gwennie has made a false cardboard bottom in my case. I’ve got enough fruit tingles* to survive 30 Lents back-to-back. 

All day, I walk around the grounds of  ’Overdale’ CONTEMPLATING how great it’s gonna be next year - when I get to Leeton High.

It’s time for freedom,
It’s time for moving, It’s time to begin,
Yes It’s time It’s time Australia,
It’s time for moving, It’s time for proving,
Yes It’s time…. 

*Retreat SWAT nun suddenly appears. Code Red. A SONGSTRESS!

SWAT sister’s yanking me from the chook yard by the ear, other hand firmly across my mouth. Then her face (Jesus would say: NOT ugly just different) close in to mine. Mouth is opening and closing like the Gogeldrie Weir floodgates, mouthing: YOU. THINK. YOU’RE. SMART. DON’T. YOU……?

I mouth back: NO0000000000NOooooooNO0000000000000000.

Penalty: Four hours in the ‘Overdale’ kitchen with the retreat catering team.

Three nuns – combined age 307 -  not ugly just different, especially when they’re mouthing:  ZUU-KIII-NI. 

That night, after a silent tea of what’s in John Ford movies called ‘grits’  there’s a special retreat treat - the priest in charge of youth for the Wagga Wagga Diocese is TALKING to us.

In he comes: Bleached hair, a bundle of Billings (’mucus watch’) Family Planning Within The Sacrament Of Marriage pamphlets and the biggest smirk this side of Grong Grong (very hard to mouth,  you try it….).

This is what he said:

 So girls if you get married and you’ve already had dirty, sinful sex what are you going to make your wedding night special:  PICK UP THE PHONE, RING ROOM SERVICE AND ORDER ICECREAM…?

* I have ordered room service icecream in hotels, pensions and dachas throughout the world and found the results fulfilling.

W eventually get out of ‘ Overdale’ and resume talking. Sharon has thought long and hard about how to be the first girl in Leeton to get her bum around a pair of Levis, Cathie’s determined she HAS crossed the line into heavy petting (beat that!) and Frances now knows for sure that God IS calling her….to a rice farm at Murrumi?, the Novitiate at Wagga?, The Rural Bank? Best just to let the School Certificate results sort it out, that what Mum says…….

So what of Father Cornetto, Father Vincent Kieran Kiss?

Well, he ingratiated himself around Melbourne social circles. Hit the big time when he was summonsed to Venice (1990) to officiate at the wedding of Miss Primrose ‘Pitty Pat’ Dunlop and Qantas steward Prince Lorenzo Montesini, also Count Of The Phanaar, Baron Alexandroff.  No go.  The Prince ran off with the best man.

Father Cornetto is also no stranger to jail. His first stint was for embezzlement. The second? Abusing teenage boys.

Goodnight.

So…..over to you. What’s the scene in your patch? Perhaps you’re thinking of Taking A Vow of Silence – and boring everyone s******** with the ins and outs thereof.  Anyway – all report backs are (goes without sayin’) valid and welcome. Congratulations and thanks to our recent new posters. Always a joyous occasion when someone takes a deep breath and honours us with a comment.

*BARLOWE  PI: LOVE ME OR LEETON!

(cr: Dave-F: flickr)

One of THE  palookas of The Murrumbigee Irrigation Area Without Water, Barlowe PI, is still workin’ the hardest beat in Australia – Ardlethan, Moombooldool, Ariah Park, Mirrool, all the way down to Griffith and Leeton.

Mister Barlowe aint the sorta guy to muck with but we all got our faults. (Excuse me, why I slip into somethun’ a little more comfortable….?)

‘Love Me Or Leeton’ all this week in our comments section.

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 youngest of my five-terrific-girls, KJ, has appraised you of the situation: I am no longer around on a day-to-day (or any other) basis but that doesn’t mean this man can’t have a say when the need arises. And it bloody well has! Little KJ, a keen astral traveller, keeps me across societal developments, and she reports that all  kids – so that includes your bloody kids - are now totally out of control.  BUT, if you’re prepared to give this man’s Self-Distancing-Disciplinary-Technique (SDDT) a burl, the dawn-to-dusk shit fights at your place will settle down. Guaranteed.

SDDT In Action! (credit: Flickr, furryscaly)

First up - to get your kids to really sit up and take notice – you have to  distance yourself from yourself. Thus, when this man was forced into disciplinary mode, be became (through a simple trick of language realignment) just……. A MAN.*

* Most common examples of SDDT in action at our place:

A MAN can’t guts any more of this…..

Do you hear what A MAN is saying…….?

You’re all giving A MAN the shits….

What’s A MAN supposed to make of this…..? (more…)

You know about growth spurts. Before going to sleep, your vital stats were (for example) age, 7, height, two-and-a-half feet, weight, 4 stone. But on awakening, great distress. Your revised vital stats? Age 7, height, two-and-three-quarters feet, weight 4 stone 8lbs. All very kooky, all potentially devastating.

BUT back then, tight-knit caring communities appointed growth spurt monitors. In my case, Betty from just up the road would just happen to rock up with much bigger, smellier Dunlop Volleys and a frayed selection of more appropriately sized outer garments. And Betty knew her job was to calm me down. Once, when I told her I was surely, surely headed for the back blocks of Idaho on a college basketball scholarship, she said: No way KJ – that’s just being right up yasself. It’s just a little growth spurt…..

Not so, with the potentially devastating syndrome that is the age spurt……. (more…)

ABC Television airs the beautifully realised The Prime Minister Is Missing on Thursday, Oct 23rd. I’ve had a preview but I won’t go on too much and wreck your viewing pleasure. Enough to say that the doco concludes that Harold Holt was going through a very, very nerve-racking period of his Prime Ministership and was chockas with perscription calmatives when he plunged into the surf off Cheviot Beach on Dec 17th, 1967. Read: Harold was not in a position to make sound decisions about whether a swim in tsunami-like conditions, was a good idea.

Click this if you want the official guff: The Prime Minister Is Missing.

Without a doubt though, the most sensational thing about The Prime Minister Is Missing (and still is) is the stroke-of-genius casting of Normie Rowe as Harold Holt. It is a non-speaking, non-singing role – mainly shots of a very nervy Harold/Normie in the backseat of the big, black Fairlane Com Car 001. (more…)

First, a message: I hope you don’t find this story gratuitous in these most uncertain of times. I am well aware that, for mum and dad investors, bouts of vigorous lovemaking are probably the last thing on their minds.

HOWEVER: There’s been lots of hoopla surrounding the recent publication of an updated version of the 1972 ‘how to’ bedroom classic, The Joy Of Sex. Click here for: Sample of hoopla

Sadly, the man who authored, The Joy Of Sex, Dr Alex Comfort, was working so hard on the New Joy, he died on the job. So, it was the British sexologist, Susan Quilliam, who brought the new tome to publication.

When news came through that there was a New Joy, I immediately set about doing what I do best: reading about sex. Night after night, I poured over the New and Old Joys, undertaking exhaustive textual analysis. My mission? To compare, to contrast, to find out how sexual procliviites had changed in the period bookended by Gough and Kevins’ elections.

For many nights, my ‘compare and contrast’ mission threw up nought. Both Joys are full of explanations and drawings of several hundred very weird and confronting coital positions. Both Joys still mention specialities like pattes d’araignee, croupade cuissade and Viennese oysters. I thought pattes d’araignee al least sounded achievable. But, when I quizzed my favourite fella at my local Woolies about ingredients, he looked blank. So, by the time I returned to my research, I was very, very despondent.

Then: Paydirt. Great Paydirt. This is what I threw up. The Old Joy has no less than four pages on how to conduct oneself, how to avoid making a fool of oneself at orgies. May I quote?

Orgies need hell of a lot of martini lubrication.  A warning though: They tend to be run by liberal intellectuals who invariably end up talking rather than doing. Hence we can well believe that the best orgiasts are the prosperous upper middle class, minor jet setters and showbiz types. (Comfort, A, MD,PhD, pp,168-172, The Joy Of Sex, Simon and Schuster, Fireside Book, 1972, sic).

The last known orgaists (image credit : ClintJCL - flikr)

Then, Dr Comfort nailed his theme in no uncertain terms:

There is no reason why sex should not be social if you wish …there could also be complications and anxieties, but there can always be complications, even at bridge parties…..

But, by 2008 The New Joy signalled a complete turn around. All references to the sensual, Socially Inclusive world of orgiasts, had been wiped clean. And why? To quote:

Because, in general, society accepts the norm that sex happens in the private realm between two people.

And so, The New Joy strongly advises to keep even threesomes or foursomes, let alone sixtytwosomes, to the realm of fantasy.

So, my  ’compare and contrast’ assignment had delivered big time but I knew my toughest, most draining work had just begun. For 16 days, one question overrode my routine creepy thoughts: WHY had orgiasts been excluded from the overarching policy of Social Inclusion?

My conclusions?

* The Rudd, and other western democratic governments, are waiting to see what emissions trading schemes will look like before inviting orgiasts to the table.

* Crippling petrol prices mean that millions of orgiasts have excluded themselves from what used to be their favourite tilt at Social Inclusion. Trips across town for just another orgy, can no longer be justified.

* Orgiasts of the prosperous middle-class first identified by Dr Comfort in 1972, now have pitiful bodies. Millions are finding even twosomes, very hard yakka. Still more have been brought low by society’s fetishistic worship of youth and perfection. For these former orgiasts, even rare bouts of one-to-one lovemaking, are only just tolerable.

I’d love to you to help me with my on-going research. Did the orginal Joy Of Sex change your life or did you think it was bit much? Should Bunnings – the king of DIY - stock the New Joy Of Sex? Should any right-thinking society ban orgiasts, menage-a-troisists and swingers from seeking any Government funding for projects falling under the Social Inclusion banner? Or perhaps, you attended your first orgy when your excitement levels peaked after your very first Moratorium march and you have no intention of stopping. Love to hear from you too, you devil….

Just click on the ‘comment’ thingo and follow the simple instructions. The place when you 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 you just ignore the ‘website’ space – not necessary!

*I note, with mounting concern, the increasing reports of ‘up themselves’ parents hothousing children.

Hothousing, of course, refers to children having schedules more appropriate for US presidential candidates. It is now common for a typical day to start with juvenile Esperanto lessons, followed by highly competitive spelling bees conducted in Welsh, and then along to talent spotting trials for the London Olympics pole vaulting squad….and all this, well before school.

Despite constant warnings from concerned psychologists, parents (particularly working ones struggling on the newly determined poverty line of 150,000 dollars per annum) show NO signs of letting up.

Like so many childless-by-spot on-choice women, I do sometimes have to talk to children. So, I oblige. The conservations go like this:

Piss Off! credit: S Baker

So, what did you do at school today?

Don’t speak down to me, old lady. That’s just sooooo cliched. Didn’t you realise that I’m horribly gifted?

Or……..

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Well, wrinkle face, I don’t dream about doing anything! I WILL do a combined Law -International Relations-Sustainability degree and then immediately have a stellar career in the Diplomatic Corps. I will then become Australia’s first ever Green Prime Minister……..now, push off Wrinkle Face….

I tell myself: this is repugnant behaviour but then, memories of my own hothousing kick in. I remind myself that I did not turn out obnoxious: quite the opposite. I have spent the best part of my life trying to justify my existence.

At our place in Leeton, the tools for hothousing cost nought. To be exact: 1 cocky, gratis. 1 cocky cage, neighbourly gift.

So, Hec (Dad) well knew he had five girls to hothouse with very few resources. He used the cocky in the cage technique on all of them, to stunning effect. Hec believed that language skills were at the basis of all academic success and his cocky in the cage methodology was a clever mix of commonsense and ‘interactive’ learning, well before that word was even thought of in educational circles.

So, how did it work….this cocky in the cage hothousing technique?

Well, Cocky lived in his moderately sized cage on an old anodised table right near our back door. As the young Ross girls went outside, Cocky R would hit us with his ‘latest’ language skills. It could be piss off, it could be go to buggery, it could be shit for brains…….

The breadth was amazing and we – with our malleable, fast-developing brains – quickly assimilated, then repeated, then retained what Cocky R said.

Best of all, we were having fun while being hothoused. So much fun, we were unaware of it. In reality, we were so language-gifted, we all had the vocabulary of a 46-year-old wharfie by age three.

As I’ve said, it was Hec who perfected the cocky in a cage hothousing technique. Sadly, he is no longer around to pass on his cocky training regimen.

But, as a gifted 18-month-old observing Hec undertake his daily 26-minute language training session with Cocky R, this I gleaned:

** Hec believed that the small cerebral capacities of cockies meant that a quick turnover of language to hothouse his children could only be achieved if he was ruthlesly ambitious. He was well-aware that cockies can only retain ONE word or phase at a time.

** Hec knew that he had to not only repeat the new, ‘replacement’ word or phrase at least 123,897 times for Cocky R to ‘take them on’, he also had to eyeball him in training sessions. And Hec knew that if Cocky R looked away first, he would not retain the new words. Much hard work would be lost.

** And perhaps most crucially, Hec kept away from all words ending or beginning with ‘T’. Hec was well aware that Cocky R’s lack of definition in the neck region lead to an evolutionary inability to contract his ‘vocal’ muscles on hard ‘T’ sounds.

Hec would be proud that I’ve waded into the hothousing debate with practical solutions.

His Cocky Hothouse Training Methodology could solve a lot of contemporary problems.

For starters, NO time-consuming trips to a myriad of sports events and workshops, no costs except very minimal ’startups’ AND…..you get lots of Me- And- Cocky -Time away from the kids.

On the other hand, you’ll squeal with delight as you see their language skills go through the roof as they joyously run outside early to see what Cocky’s got to teach them today!

Currently, there’re lots of hysterial purchases being made of backyard water tanks.

Will you not (for the sake of the children in the longterm) consider getting a cocky and a cage, instead?