Dusty Gal

My sister has a wonderful tribute to her horse Eve. Do go over - but take a tissue, because it made me cry, and while I am not a barometer to trust on all things teary (I cry at ads, folks) you would have to be stonelike not to be twanged by the amazingly wonderful story of a love between a girl and her horse.

I had a horse too. Only - I won't make you cry, I promise.

My horse wasn't one I pined for and woke at daylight each morning to see if she was born. She has no lore apart from the fact that she was a pony and lived up to her name.


Alluded to in BB's post was a breaking-in school. She makes it sound like a rite of passage for the love affair that was between her and Eve - and obviously different people get different versions of events.

I am two years younger than BB (and 1 month and 5 days, she just wears it better) and have always been. I cannot recall whether it was a whinge from me ("she always gets to do great stuff") or a wonderful idea of my father's ("can we get a bulk deal?"), but I also got to be a student at that school.

And, as a metaphor for equine/human love lives, her experience of the long shot with misty hills and melodious backdrops is one for the romantics. My experience? Well, did you read my poem in the last post? Yep, cue rock music, quick-cut montage and the agony and ecstasy of what many confuse with passion.

Dusty Gal was actually never my horse - she belonged to my uncle as my uncle owned her mother. Her mother was called Dusty because that is how she left her riders - and the apple did not fall far from the tree.

She was given to me as my experiment because she was a squirt of a thing - like me - and as she would eventually have to be broken, I was the sucker small enough to attempt it.

BB has a great shot of her coming adrift from Eve at this event due to the lack of full girth tightening. And by the way - despite her fears to the contrary, ALL of those teenage boys were definitely checking out the cute chick graciously arcing through the atmosphere.

(I know this because I was the younger sister who was the target of these teenage gods approaches to find out more about my big sister.)

When people viewed my interaction with Dusty Gal, they had emotional responses also. Think - the youngest, cutest (what good is memory if you cannot enhance?) shortest person at the breaking-in school on the shortest horse most of the time. It was definitely a hoot worth taking your popcorn along to.

The good news is, Dusty Gal never bucked. She had such an arsenal at her disposal in terms of removing riders from her back that she would not deign to such foolishness.

She would bolt, prop, duck sideways, backwards and overboard.

Other students of the school stood in wonderchortled in paroxysms of laughter at her lithe ability to not be beneath her rider, whether it be in the paddock where we took long rides (and I took long walks), in the big yard where we cantered figure eights (and I found the fence, the sand and my hat all too often) or even in the small yard where we were to "take the buck out" (ha ha ha - who needs to do that?).

Oh, I did love Dusty Gal - I admired her grit (as I spat it from my teeth), her wit (untangling myself from wire rope) and her determination (as she repeated such offences with any grown man who tried to show me how I should be taking control).

The best thing about Dusty Gal was that she was sneaky - an no-one was more relieved than I when she snuck into close enough proximity to the stallions paddock that she became a teenage pregnancy statistic and I was off the hook.

And I realise that I also got to find many metaphors for Dusty Gal in my earlier love life.

Too fast, too unreliable and dangerous - and I somehow believed I could break them.

But then - I would always pick myself up, shake off the dust, swear a few times, scream a few more - and move on.

(I would not count V as a Dusty Gal allusion - you do eventually get over such stupidity lessons and move on. He is far more a Statesman allegory. Now, Statesman I truly loved because that big bay gave me confidence again.)

Pole Dancing With Success - part one...

(ha ha ha - that should give the googlers something to scratch their heads about).

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Now, I have spent so much time agonising over this post and writing it into my head, that of course it is now a whole bloddy series and then I dreamed last night that I had posted something trivial and relevant and ruined the whole 300th thing.

(Oh, and I just realised that this is really 299, so somewhere in the archives is one draft I never published - darn - practice, hey?)

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Ever notice I obsess a bit?

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Anyhow, what with the poetry requests (aren't you lovely readers) and wanting to see corporate Jeanie (isn't my sister evil) and someone wanting to know the meaning of my world, I have come up with a concept and will see if it will fly...

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So what I am going to give you, as I put it together, over the next little bit is the career lowlights, and how a nice country girl became a corporate woman and then slid down the greasy pole of success to follow her dreams of poetry and pottering.

Will that work for you?

Also, I will excuse the lack of the Reader's Digest photo at the moment - I haven't laid my hands on a copy to scan and I am awaiting Bush Babe finding her copy.

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To whet your appetite, a poem - not about being a career woman, but one I wrote during that phase of my life and one brought to mind by the post I read at Kill the Goat this morning.

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OUTPOURINGS (and the curious behaviour of bed linen)


Freshly washed sheets,
Laundered in the romantic dream that you may make your bed with me,
Lay waiting, like a sacrificed virgin,
Until the culinary delights I have blessed you with,
Have been washed down by the superlative wine you bought at the
    bottle-oh up the road.
And the mating dance begins.

My move first.
I shall accidentally touch you, perhaps,
A seemingly accidental caress
That I wait for a reaction to -
A litmus test - perhaps you pass
So now it is your move
Until all the pawns are removed.
This is the proving ground.

Once concessions have passed
And boundaries pressed,
The Queen makes her move -
Long, noiseless, imperceptible.
And the staccato raps of the static clergy;
    The excitable knights;
    The bigoted rooks
Attempt to save the King.
We dally.
If I grow bored, you leave,
Perhaps you go after coffee anyway
With early morning rituals ahead.
Or maybe you stay.

Now, mind, no mutual move has yet been made,
And we may both yearn for common tracks,
And so we bundle in bed.
Talking. Holding out on dawn.

Again there are many possible trails,
    And now I pour out my request
As I have always wished to have the guts to do,
Or I have often wanted from my lovers.

Possible route one (no pun intended)
Is that we agree these encounters are to proceed
Predictably,
In the direction of a self-deprecating hope
To please another, in the hope
That by doing so we will get pleasure
But we doubt it, so we hope
That if we do not enjoy the joining,
We will at least enjoy the vicarious pleasure we bring.
And that by the early hours, again hope sprouts
That we can regard each other honestly.

      OR

We can continue to talk
And tread over the woven threads of our lives
And so a basis of mutual recognition form
And we hold each other
Trusting,
As friends.

      OR

We sleep, and let slumber pass as peacefully as possible,
Without snores, or farts, or sleeptalking of deeper desires
Upset our equilibrium.

      OR

We can decide to abandon the shards of discomforting formality
And agree to let lust rule the night -
Give way to hedonism
And disregard the fear of the uncertain future;
Let loose with all the text book logic
Plus a few tricks picked up on the way;
Swing from the chandeliers (to coin a phrase)
Bid inhibition adieu -
And really get down to the nitty-gritty
Of the practical aspects.
And if this be a one-night stand
Let it stand as testimony
To a DAMNED good time!
And if it extends to a second night
Let BLISS mark the first.

But these are never raised
As usual options.
And so only the freshly laundered sheets
may dare
Anticipate the next move.

White, no sugar,
In the cupboard above the sink.
Thank you.

Number Two Hundred and Ninety-Nine

Do you know that girl? Goodness, give her a tonic and tell her to have a good lie down.

Sorry for the whingy woman that has been invading my body of late, ladies (and gents) - she is far too concerned with the things that get her down to bother to notice the things that get her up.

Well, except for the things that get her up in the morning, that is.

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I arrived at Granite Glen safely, and as soon as I kick Bush Babe off her computer I will start "mustering".

In the interim, I thought I had best let you know I have had a little more sleep, done a little more cash massaging, had a few more cuddles from V (4 more sleeps, honey) and am a much chirpier bird than I was last post.

Thank you so much for your nice words.

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Anyhow - I have just noticed that I am up to post two hundred and ninety-nine.

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There is a tradition that on your 100th post you are meant to do a 100 things post - now, I did not do this - and I will not do a 300 things about me because, really, you have put up with enough of my belly-button fluff and I don't know how far we will have to mine to find 30 things, let alone that many.

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Instead, its up to you.

What do you want to know?

What do you want me to do for my 300th?

Do you want poems, pictures or more pathetic excuses of why I cannot enjoy Paradise to its utmost?

Perhaps I could cook you dinner, take you shopping or give you html tips - your call.

The Holidays...

When do I get one? That is right - another whinge folks. Sorry - I was up during the week at some point, but little things have popped my balloon.

Here is a picture if you don't want to read on - I understand.

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We have been very good on the exercise every morning thing. Not going to this morning though, as we have softball and I need to meditate - after I write a few emails trying to sort some work things out.

On Thursday night, my mum arrived and so 'Salina got a small half hour extra staying up. Friday morning we went on a walk and then 'Salina was "sick".

She genuinely had a temperature (according to the very dodgy thermometer I have) and was very lethargic - and as she had been practicing hard for her performance all week and is the stellar student, I figured she must have been so let her chuck a sickie.

She had an amazing recovery by 10, so I took her in to school and cursed.

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On Thursday, there was an overwhelming response to Pizza Day, and as I am the Tuck Shop Martyr, I was at school from 8 until 4 assisting.

It was also the open day at school, so there was one half hour where I got to sit and appreciate my daughter's (and 21 of her classmates) work.

I had to stamp down hard on my automatic responses (either genetic or learned behaviour - I love my father dearly, but he gave me more than brown eyes) of being critical of spelling, inattention to details, sloppy handwriting.

There were some beautiful bits, but I had to try hard to notice them as I had been woken twice the night before - once in a phone call and once in someone slipping in to my bed - and my batteries were almost all out.

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I arrived home to find some emails about the work I had done during the week and high praise plus invoice matters and what more could I do.

I responded with my very limited availability in the next little bit (I am actually fully booked most of the holidays) and I could help on urgent items only for a few hours only yesterday.

I ended up nursing a child, working an hour, taking an unsick child to school, having an hour long phone call about that work, doing several hours work on it, sending a detailed email (another good half hour) about it, entertaining my mother, trying to extricate myself from a conversation with the neighbour, checking on responses to the email, saying good bye to my mother, sending the unsick child to her friend's down the road, checking on responses to the email, taking a new car for a drive to the shops with V, shopping, listening to V's assessment of the vehicle, checking on responses to the email, getting an unexpected visit from my father, hollering at my unsick child and her friend to get out of the drain, saying so long to my father, sending unsick child to the bath, checking on responses to the email, having a phone call about the work, explaining the work, sending through more information, having another phone call about the work, going to our reception venue for dinner and watching the footy with V. (Wasn't the Broncos - they are tonight).

Please don't try and understand that last paragraph - I am still trying to catch up on what the heck it was all about. And that was only half of it because I edited.

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Anyway - am doing softball this morning, looking after cousins this evening, packing tomorrow, going west to my family and visiting for a week (where I will try and sort a few work things out), back for a weekend to spend quality time with my sweetheart, try to sort a few work things out, back to my family to collect my daughter and try to sort a few more work things out and back here for school and try to sort a few work things out.

I am so sorry I haven't been around, don't know when I will have a chance to be around but in the mean time see you then...

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I will try to check in at some point over the next two weeks - but really, I just want to check out.

How about them Broncos

As you may (or may not) know, in our home we do, on the occasional weekend evening (or afternoon) (during the months March - September) happen to partake in a tradition of yelling at the referee barracking for various football teams.

For most games, we have a hierarchy of who we are most likely to barrack for based on who we dislike the least - but there is one team we give our might to every week - and that team (scraped) through to the final rounds.

Hooray.

They even won the first (elimination) round of the finals.

Double hooray.

Then they went drinking. Then they drank more. And more. And more. Then they chased a little skirt.

Then the cops chased them.

And then they cried it wasn't fair and they were targets.

Boo-hoo.

You know what?

I am not yelling at the ref over this one - I am yelling at my boys "you stupid morons!" Okay, the language I use is stronger than this.

I am not thinking they are just a'holes for the fact that they thought that it somehow good form to do with the girl who "consented" to whatever it is that three footballers and a girl do in a toilet cubicle.

It is not just that they are such oafs to consider that such a "consensual" act would be undertaken by someone who would be so overawed by their sports star glow that they would not either

• (a) be the sort of girl who may sell their story;
• (b) be the sort of girl who was who may or may not be planted by high roller gamblers who have much to gain by bringing down a footy team;
• (c) be the sort of girl who may get all remorseful from whatever it is that three footballers and a girl do in a toilet cubicle or even
• (d) that maybe what they see as a "yes" through their beer goggles and testosterone pumped senses may actually be a "really, you are some very wierd guys and I want to show you my rash"

And really, it is not that they are hugely paid sports stars who are held up as icons to teenage boys (and girls and younger) who should be acting like semi-decent human beings.

It is just because someone, somewhere in their life should have taught them what is right and what is wrong.

And quite frankly, three footballers drunk entering a toilet cubicle with one girl - its just not right. Not even if a gilded invitation has been issued with RSVP's.

I hate to be a wowser - but for goodness sake, grow up.

And if you cannot - during the finals, boys, keep it in your pants, contemplate a little tee-total or possibly a padded room to get pissed in.

I would love for the Broncos to give Bennett the shield for one last time - but whether they do or whether they don't, the taste of yelling for them has become tainted.