Super sleuths

Sometimes my husband has a play date with one of his single mates from work when they are both off during the week. Nick comes over and they do bloke stuff - Drink beer and eat pizza for brunch, research all kinds of important matters on the internet, like porn, air crash investigations, celebrity mugshots and other secret mens business.

Occasionally they solve mysteries. One day they came home after a boys weekend and Mark noticed I had a new vase/candle holder on the table.

This is how I imagine it went - immediately he went into psycho Italian husband mode "What crap is she fucken wasting money on now?'. Nick being ever helpful says 'Oh, look here is the catalogue'. Bastard. Flicking through it they find the item and Mark splutters 'ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS, WHAT THE FUCK'. Nick skeedadles before I get home, he hates confrontation and sometimes thinks I am a bit scary.

So eventually I arrive home from whatever adventure I was on, (probably already in trouble for not being at home with a tasty meal on the dining table in a sparkling clean house).
Mark is waiting. 'Hmmm, well, what do you have to say about this?' I explain in simple, single syllable words that can get through to a ranting husband 'I got it for free at my candle party' (The last of ANY Tuppeware/Nutrimetics/Clothing/Cookware/other crap I don't need party, I will ever have) and when I accuse him of being a snoop, he blames Nick!

This week Mad (Dad) turns 70. I told Mark I wanted to buy Mad some vintage Footscray football cards - in his Bodgie days in the 50s, Mad was friends with the players and went to John Jillard's wedding. I managed to get a mint 1954 Teddy Whitten Argus football card and it arrived in the mail on Wednesday and I left it on my desk.

Last night (Thursday) I get home and Mark very excitedly informs me 'Hey, did you know that footy card on your desk is worth something?' (Um, Der Fred) 'Yeah, me and Nick looked it up on the net, it's worth over sixty bucks! It's a good thing you kept in the plastic all these years'

I reminded him of our conversation and eventually he remembered. Obviously when I told him about the birthday plans all he heard was 'blah, blah, blah, family, blah, blah, in-laws, blah, blah'.

He thought it was mine - On Wednesday night at midnight, I wanted to post a picture of Mad's 50th birthday budgie cake on Facebook and I had one of my I-must-find-it-this-very-minute-panics and was searching through photo boxes. Mark thought it was a treasure I had found in my trash.

Guided tour of the crematorium

One of my train buddies works at the local cemetery as a grave digger. Last year, I dropped off some posters for the skinsnsharps exhibition to him at lunch time and he asked me to meet him behind the crematorium. I like meeting almost-strangers in secluded places.

He arrived in his tractor at the same time I pulled up in the car and after making my delivery he asked if I would like to have a look through the crematorium. Oh boy! Did I? Wow.

It is a big square concrete room with a bank of four incinerators in the middle. The back area is where the coffins wait till they are pushed into the furnace. From the other side you are able to view the orange glow of the flames through a tennis ball sized window. After the entire coffin (including handles and plaque) and body has been consumed, the remains are raked towards the front of the furnace, where they fall into a smaller chamber to be incinerated further.

The remains then fall into a metal container and the container is placed into a unit on the wall. Using vibration and metal balls the size of a small orange, the remains are ground into a plastic container, ready to be returned to the family. After viewing the process I am quite comfortable with the thought of being cremated.

A further story to add to the day - As I was leaving I noticed a funeral director standing around in his suit while he was making a 'delivery'. I looked at his name plate and it was a boy I went to high school with. At an orientation day, I nicknamed him Foghorn, as his voice had broken and he had a deep, deep voice. We had a gasbag and then my train buddy called me into the tea room, as one of the other grave diggers wanted to ask me something about RAGE.

As I was in the tea room chatting to the men, my high school friend shouted from the hearse, "Julie, leave those boys alone, let them have their lunch in peace. You're as bad as you were in high school."

Chocolate Royals

I found this in my drafts, I am not sure if it was ever posted. I have so much stuff on here now that I really can't remember what I have crapped on about.

There is a particular way to eat Chocolate Royals.

You have to crack the chocolate on top, preferably by smashing it against your forehead, then you eat the little cracked pieces one at a time. Next you suck off the marshmallow in one piece, then you nibble around the edges of the biscuit that remains, lastly you pop the remainder in your mouth and finish the biscuit.

This method of eating Chocolate Royals is particularly impressive when meeting people for the first time or at morning/afternoon tea time during business conferences. I taught Claire this necessary life skill when she was very small.

When Mark and I first met, he often turned up with treats of an evening, Tim Tams, blocks of Snack chocolate and other biscuits. One evening he turned up with Chocolate Royals.

He offered four year old Claire and myself a Chocolate Royal, and without a word being spoken, in complete synchronicity, Claire and I executed our Chocolate Royal eating ritual.

As Mark watched us a loud voice in his head said to him "GET OUT". It was too late. He was trapped with us forever. Forever. Forever.

What a grouse day

On the way to Thomastown railway station yesterday my husband grumbled, 'It would have been easier to just drop you off at Fed Square, but Oh, no, you have to be the center of attention and go to Thomastown' before he pushed me out of the car as I tried to remember how to walk in treads.

The Thomastown Sharps were waiting on the platform and after telling me they were going to roll me for my connie, Nick fussed over them like a mother duck and supervised photography, 'Mel, take two, take another one', 'now move to the side', 'Bowie, you get in the middle', etc. It was gorgeous.

In the train Bowie pointed out to a fence and told the story of how years ago he painted BOWIE in (pink?) paint on the fence. For ages the Reservoir Boys thought he lived there and would throw stuff at the house and lay in wait for Bowie to come outside. I can just imagine all the plotting and planning that went into these expeditions. Ha Ha sucked in!

Nick passed around copies of their book to be signed and a commuter approached saying 'Is that the Thomo Sharps book? Yeah, my brother was a Thomo Sharp'. I was really hoping he was going to be caught out bullshitting, as that would have been very entertaining, but Bowie turned around and shook his hand as he recognised him. The locals used to hate them, but things seem to have changed, as people brag 'my cousin's girlfriend, her dad's gardener used to go to school with Bowie'.

Between 30-40 old sharpies and associates turned up at Beer Delux and the stories and beer flowed to the non-music of Sparra (wearing his 60s footy duffle coat and madman's hat) whining like a cry-baby about the price. '$7 a pot, what a bloody rip off for shit beer, taste this' he moaned, (before skulling it and sprinting off try the next flavor on tap, which was $13 a pot!) The beer was nice, cold and bitter. Dunno what he was complaining about and.. I did catch him almost moaning in a secret beer orgasm as he tried the strawberry beer, while still sooking about the price of $9.

Jacko turned up with his new Kindle, bragging now he can bring 600 books with him. He was the only sharpie that always had a novel in his back pocket in the 1970s. He often reads when we are out with Andrea and she gets the shits and smacks the book from his hands

Skin hypnotised everyone with her blue, blue eyes, Woodsie wore a strawberry and cream coloured connie, which I think is a girls' colour and I wiped a tear away as I watched Dog and Colin have a huge man hug as they saw each other for the first time since the 80s.
And I got presents! Have I ever told you how much I love presents? Bretley made me a magnificent custom fob watch with Julie Mac, Seventies Sharpie and blue birds. Dog gave me a stubby holder with the bluebird Col drew for RAGE and Frank gave me a copy of MAD MAD MAD, City Sharps new CD. I love the title track 'Drag Racing' - I hear things in it that make me feel young, I can hear 'Your mumma don't dance and your daddy don't rock and roll', '48 Crash' and other bits that propel me back into my 70s bedroom with my burnt orange portable record player.

Nick fluffed around and was in his element - he reminded me of my little brother, when Paul, used to repeat 'Dad, Dad, can I have tweny thents, Dad' until Mad caved in after 13.25 hours of nagging and Paul would bolt around the milk bar and buy mixed lollies from Mimwillyums (Mrs Willems) our evil milk bar proprieter. 'Can I have two thents of bananas, four thents of ....'. All the kids knew Mimwillyms was evil, she had black hair with a white stripe, just like the Bride of Frankenstein'.
But thanks to Nick's supervison, I had a true Suzi Quatro cover of Can the Can moment, when he called me into the school photo style, Thomo Sharps group photo (Yes, I know I am a fickle bitch).
Mid afternoon I left with Chane Chane and Frank from City Sharps and Chane's wife Gerlinda for a radio interview at RRR. OMG! My inner teenager was hysterically squealing with delight. I got the passenger seat in Chane's silver sports car (one of the benefits of being fat, you get the best seat in a car) and Frank and Gerlinda were in the back, (In my head I pretended they were not there and that Chane and I were on a date and I was still a skinny punk chick). Chane drove like a rockstar and told me music stories, which went way over my head, but I just pretended I knew what he was on about, which is probably what all groupies do anyway. I wonder what I would have said in 1980, when I was in the midst of my teenage La Femme obsession, if I was told that in 31 years, I would be on a radio station with Chane.

I read out two bits of RAGE on air, the part where I get to sing 'get it up, get it in, get it out, don't mess my hair up'. (That's a champagne party favorite with the gays and queens at parties at mum's house) and the bit when Igby and I bolt from the mounted coppers at the Thin Lizzy concert at the Myer Music Bowl.

Chane and Frank talked to the ruggedly handsome Jonnie von Goes about their CD while outside the booth, in true wife-of-a-rockstar style, Gerlinda cat napped on a couch, blanketed in a mink coat, her long blonde hair wildly fanned around her porcelain face.

Back at Fed Square most of the group had drifted away, Pete and Dog came back from seeing Collingwood at the Footy (where the beer was? You guessed it, $7 a pot) and after Crazy spent every dollar, except for his train fare on beer, we caught the train to Footscray, with our best mates. The ticket inspectors!