Lulu’s Feast

23rd December……… Last minute shopping.  Shoulder to shoulder in the trenches.  Squabbling over the last tub of Goose Fat.  I won… never underestimate an Aussie girls’ ability to feed her family.  She will go to wall.

The ENOURMOUS turkey arrived.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t home.  So the efficient DHL man left it with my neighbour. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the friendly neighbour, but rather the one that has been peering at me through her net curtains since the day I moved in.

I rang the bell.

“Guten Morgan, Frau Whipplebottssternhagen.  I believe you have a parcel for me?”  Picture me with my most winning smile, desperately hoping that she doesn’t stuff a chloroform rag in my mouth and drag me into the cellar.

“Ya… but the box says ‘Fresh Produce’… does that mean that it is alive?” She is peering at me with little beady, blue eyes, and I begin to wonder if she is sizing me up as to whether I will fit through her mince grinder.

“Well actually, it is our turkey for Christmas dinner.”  And here, I made a BIG, BIG (I typed that in upper case, just to ensure that you get it… BIG! mistake.

“I hope that you took it out of the box and let it have a walk around your garden, I am sure he is feeling a little cramped cramped in there…”

The blood rushed out of her face.  Her mouth made a perfect ‘O’. Her eyes started darting backwards and forwards between me and the box.

“But I didn’t know!!” she said, very serious.  “You should have told me… it is not nice to stuff a large bird into a box for so long.”

Never in my wildest dreams did I think she would believe me.

“Ha, ha,(that is the laugh that comes out of me when I know that I have screwed up and need time to formulate an excuse that will sound vaguely plausible) don’t worry, I was just kidding you…”  as I am edging toward my bird, in the vain hope that she is going to let me escape with him or her.

“Oh, I see.”  But she didn’t, she didn’t see one little bit.  With pursed lips, she handed me the offending box, sniffed once, and closed the door, barely missing the tip of my nose.

The curtains twitched with more than their usual vigour until I managed to find refuge back inside my house.

Moral to this story:  Making jokes about mailing live animals in a box is not going to get you elected president of the Straße.

Not Missing, Just Busy…

Still here..
Still Christmas (can’t quite believe that it hasn’t be been and gone yet. 

All ‘the guests’ were collected and installed, the big ones, the little ones and the middle sized ones too.

Mr Dear Husband needed to jet back to Madagascar for a few days, and this little brown duck drove him to the airport.  It was snowing… A LOT, more than a little, did you hear me, A LOT.  Not getting out of 3rd gear on the AutoBahn is a weird experience.  I took one of the guests with me, not sure why, he doesn't  speak a word of German, but he is one of those ‘handy’ types, and I figured that having a man with me to dig me out of the snow was a smart move. 

All went well until after drop off, there I was leaning into the windshield, like that would make it easier to see through the blanket of white that was being smashed in my face, dodging other Lulu’s that were all doing the same… and it happened.  Whoops!  I took the wrong Autobahn and got caught up in a mass migration of Lulu’s… all leaning into the windscreen, all hoping that would help… but in TOTALLY the wrong direction. 

“Whatever you do, don’t panic!” I started repeating, like a mantra, only it wasn’t putting me into a nice dreamy meditation, more in the direction of manic anxiety…

At about the time that I thought I might need to tell ‘the male guest’ that we were going to need our passports, I found a place to turn around and head in the other direction.  I mumbled something like “Did you enjoy the scenic tour? I have been planning that for months!”  No way did he buy it, but was quite gracious in his silence.  When we finally made it home, I needed a pair of pliers to pull his fingernails out of the dashboard… but I don’t think he ever really noticed his close shave with certain death.

Merry Christmas to one and all…  Let’s hope it’s a happy one, without any tears….whoops!  I feel a poem coming on… here is something for you all to pop under your tree…from me!:

Christmas

I've been getting ready for Christmas
I'm revving up for the great day
my credit card's cracked and my freezer is packed
'cause I started my shopping in May

The mistletoe's hanging in bunches
'cause the odd Christmas kiss isn't wrong
and the Vicar I've found - quite likes calling round
and exploring my crowns with his tongue

The bin men have gotten quite friendly
they're after a present I fear
they won't feel so chuffed when I tell them - get stuffed
'cause they don't speak the rest of the year

The family is coming for dinner
last year it was quite a good laugh
we ate fairly late - dished the veg on the plate
found the turkey was still in the bath

The kids are all pink with excitement
'cause Santa will come so they say
their lists are extensive - extremely expensive
and they'll break it all by Boxing day

But it's worth all that fuss Christmas morning
when their little eyes are all aglow
when we're all feeling merry full of goodwill and sherry
and suffering from wind Ho Ho Ho

But please don't forget why we do it
why each year we must go to this fuss
for that guy up above who brought peace and brought love
and who probably owns Toys R Us..........    Liz Garrad

 

I’m just saying…

“I used to be Snow White -- but I drifted.” Mae West

This time tomorrow ‘the guests’ will be here.  For about 10 seconds this morning I felt bad.  Bad that they were already sitting in a sardine tin hurtling through the atmosphere, while I was snuggled up, toasty warm, in my Super Duper Extra Comfy Cosy Bed.  But then I got over it, because there is much to do!

Started the pastry for my mince pies last night.  The recipe said to chill the flour and butter for 20 minutes in the freezer.  Are you kidding me!  Have you seen the size of a German fridge? No way could you ever hide a dead body here… hmmm not sure where that came from.  After spending 10 minutes trying to fit the bowl of my Kitchen Aid into a small drawer, I found another solution (also makes an excellent beer cooler):

And ‘the guests’ now have a bed.  I wasn’t sure that was going to happen.  I can show you, because, like I said, ‘the guests’ are currently cruising at 20,000 feet, eating with plastic cutlery and being kicked in the back of the seat by a little fat kid who likes to press the button to summon the ‘cabin attendant"’, often.

Now here it gets interesting.  Not one to toot my own horn or anything (yeah right), but the one thing ‘the guests’ requested, seeing as they come from a little town in the middle of nowhere, and the temperature has been a constant 42 degrees… was snow.  “Could we please have some snow?” they said… Oh sure, no problem… I can do that. And I did.

Ok, ok… yes it does look like I just dropped a bag of flour out there.  And those of you that live in Minnesota and have been shovelling 5m high snow drifts all week… well just stop sniggering, I can hear you from here!!  We are expecting more on Saturday, but at least it will be a nice welcome gift.

Should nuclear war start tomorrow, or those Aliens that chased Tom Cruise all over in War of the Worlds (still can’t believe that didn’t manage to eat that little shrimp) arrive… we are prepared.  The cellar is fully loaded.

  Now all I need to do is get my cute butt to Frankfurt to collect everybody.  They all very conveniently booked to arrive at 6:00am (god bless their little cotton socks), and as it is at least a two hour drive (if we are lucky), and it is snowing… Mr Dear Husband has booked us in to sleep in a hotel near the Airport tonight.  I hear it has an excellent Japanese restaurant… I will think about ‘the guests’ as I am sipping my Sake and supping on Sushi, while they enjoy their 17th meal of ‘chicken or fish?”

And then what?

“My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?”  Charles M. Shulz

I know, I know, it might seem a bit premature to start indulging thoughts of New Year’s Eve, especially for those of you that have yet to give ANY thought at all to the madness/deliciousness that is Christmas.  But here I go…

This morning, I had a long Skype call with a lovely friend.  It has been a while, both of us busy with lives that revolve around work, kids, husbands, family and the million other details that equal = ‘collapse into bed each night'”.  My relationship with her goes way back.  She has seen all aspects of me, and I know, loves me anyway (not easy, but she makes it look like fun).  And, she has a magical power, a power so amazing that it should be launched on the New York Stock Exchange.

The power to make me step up.

There, I said it.  Her gentle words and prods, remind me of where I am in life, and where I need to go.  A chat with her can make my self-esteem go off the Richter Scale.  All thoughts of self doubt, misery and failure just fly away.

So, I say to myself, Where Am I Going"?  What is the next step on the path of life?

I like a challenge.  I like a reason to jump out of bed in the morning.  I like a project.  A purpose.

I need a job.  Or I need to create a job.

How about I write a book?  Maybe a column, something witty and worthy of comment.  End up on the New York Times Bestseller List?  That would be good…

 

“Highly recommended!” Time Magazine.  “Couldn’t stop laughing.” Vogue, London.  “A delight! Should be made a national treasure!” The Observer.  “Where has she been hiding? Wonderful stuff.”  The New Yorker.

 

 

Shame Oprah is closing up shop, because an invite to her Book Club would do the trick.

I’d like a mailbag full of fan post.  Even better, I could write an ‘Agony Aunt’ column.  Most of my life I have been called a Know-it-All, what better way to put that all to good use.  How about coming up with an idea like Frank at PostSecret.  He gets 200-300 postcards a day, has published four books and is on the speaking circuit.  Now, I could rock that.

Or I suppose I could teach English.  Sure to find takers here.  But as I have just had a bit of a run in with Miss 8’s English teacher.. perhaps I should step carefully. Scout out the territory first… don’t want to tread on any toes.

What else?  Don’t you just admire people who find their passion early in life, people that sleep, eat and breath their craft.  People who tap out tunes in their sleep, or doodle on every cocktail napkin.  Amazing women, who have managed to turn their family recipes into multi-million dollar earnings. Hmm, that sounds good.

Making money.  Then I could be a philanthropist.  Giving it all away.  That appeals.  Yes, when I grow up, I want to be Lulu the Philanthropist. 

Yep.. that will do.

And if that doesn’t work out?  Well, I will just be famous, or a fire fighter, or a train driver…. or a Lion tamer.

Guests

“A great marriage is not when the 'perfect couple' comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.”  Dave Meurer

In four days, I will have guests.  Tired guests, guests that have crossed half the world to come see me.  I suspect they will not only be tired, but a bit stinky too.  Might want to give them a bath.  They will certainly want a bed.  Hmmm… guests.

Sometimes I have visions of what it would be like to be the lady of a grand country manor house, complete with huge roaring fireplaces and secret panels.  To stand at the massive oak front door and greet my weekend guests, directing each to their room:

“Oh Demi and Ashton, so lovely you could make it.  Please, make yourselves at home.  I have prepared the Blue Room in the East wing for you.  I hope you find everything to your satisfaction.”

Yeah… something like that.

Reality is a WHOLE other picture.  At the risk of ending a 20 year veteran marriage, I collected Dear Mr Husband from the airport last Friday night, hugged and kissed, asked if he was hungry, then whisked him off to IKEA.  He didn’t even see it coming. 

“But you did say you were hungry!”  I am pulling my most winning, big-eyed, puppy dog, innocent  look.

“Sure, but this isn’t quite what I had in mind!”  I start moving him faster toward the big yellow and blue sign because I can see that he is starting to put two and two together, and coming up with Swedish meatballs.

It was cruel, I know.  He didn’t deserve it.  But I was desperate.  Guests need beds… and I don’t have enough.  Normally I would just smack down the credit card on the keyboard and have it delivered.  But not even my cajoling emails could convince anyone to deliver before the guests arrive. “You have left it too late, madam.”  Nuts!

I know, I know… I can hear you saying, “But you are such a power frau, Lulu, why didn’t you just do it yourself?”

Something odd happens the moment I walk into IKEA.  My brain turns off, well not OFF, per say, more like I seem to mimic a small child with ADD who has just drunk a gallon of red slushie. 

“Oh look.. nice chair… hmmm if I had that shelf, I could put up that picture…huh, oh that one is even better, and if I lived in 35 square metres, I could have the bed in the kitchen like they do here.. oh and I need more plastic cups… oh and look at all the candles.. oh, quick look over here… and at this … and hooks… and that nifty little doodat….”  It is sad.. really sad to watch.  Distracted by the shiny lights, I have, on almost every occasion, come home, dazed, confused and empty handed.

He walked, with purpose to the sofa bed department (if you can call it a department, rather a stop on IKEA version of the Yellow Brick Road), he selected, he pushed the cart through the checkout (after a 45 minute wait in line), he arranged delivery … then he stalked to the car and didn’t talk to me for at least 3 minutes. 

He is a good man.

The guests have a bed.

I was made to sign, in blood (ok in red slushie), a promise never to hijack Mr Dear Husband to IKEA, ever, ever, again.

…til next time, that is…

I think I love Bing Crosby

There are days when all it takes to make me happy is an email. 

Dear Lulu,

Just to let you know that I have finished running the world (for the time being) from Madagascar, and will be returning home to you and ours, tomorrow.

Best Regards, Mr Dear Husband

The stress levels dropped back to normal… that is my normal stress level, which would be the equivalent of being held hostage during a bank hold-up for anyone else.

With the load lightened, I found my second wind.  The night was young, the kidlet tucked up in bed, and Bing Crosby was warbling away on the iPod.  Time to do a few chores.  It started with another batch of Christmas cookies, I had prepared the dough earlier, so this was very satisfying:

Last weekend, I was given some gorgeous new decorations made from Felt. who knew you could do so much with Felt.  This doesn’t look complicated, but it fell off about a dozen times while I was putting it up and was christened with flood of choice words!  Remember those felt picture games we had as kids?  I loved those:

What do you do with a glass vase and an abundance of Christmas tree ornaments?  Well you shove them all together, add some lights and Hey Presto!  Magic!  Ok, maybe not magic… man, you are a tough crowd.

 

Once I started, I couldn’t stop.  More things needed to be sorted, and I was wide awake.  Tackled the cupboard with the Christmas stash next.  I think we might have enough now?

Found this little Gingerbread house, just waiting to be put together, but my eyes were starting to get heavy and I was beginning to change lyrics to Bing’s tunes… and some of them weren’t very Christmasy at all.  Bing would have blushed!

Left the Pepparkakshus house for another day… oops!  it is already ‘another day’, and in just four hours I would be listening to the wake up call of the German weather report on the radio alarm.  An odd collection, redistributed to accommodate Christmas decorations, greeted me on the way to bed.  I always like to say “it takes all kinds”… and in this house, we have them all.  Good night. Sleep tight…

Oooooooooh the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightfuuuuuuul
And since we've no place to goooooooooo
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

Kneading Help

“Love doesn't sit there like a stone, it has to be made, like bread: remade all the time, made new.” Og Mandino

Just in case it looks like this blog is going to become all whinging or whining. Or perhaps something like the local newspaper for the North Pole, I thought it might be time to toss in a few other thoughts.

I lived in Germany over 20 years ago, just for 18 months, with a small baby girl on my hip, in a tiny town outside Munich. It was tough. My German was limited, and I was pretty much alone. In this small town, everybody was about 15th generation, and outsiders were looked at with suspicion.

My first trip to the bakery ended in tears as I tried desperately to explain that I wanted 6 Brötchen. A shrug of the shoulders from across the counter. I could feel my face starting to colour up and my heart thumping in my chest.

“Ich möchte sechs Brötchen bitte”, I tried again, using my most winning smile. Nothing, nada, nix. So I tried pointing. Doing that weird thing that we do when trying to convey a message, all exaggerated and campy. It never occurred to me EVER to use English, that just felt like it would aggravate the situation even further. Finally, she took pity on me, gave a little snort, stuffed the bread rolls into a bag and handed them to me. I threw some coins in her direction and fled.

By the time I got home, I was rapidly heading into hysteria (as I am wont to do under stress). The words tumbled out of my mouth as fast as those bread rolls were chucked on the table. Mr Dear Husband was staring at me with that expression we normally reserve for the insane.

“Oh, I should have told you that down here in the South of Germany, they don’t call them Brötchen, they call them Semmel.”

He is lucky to be alive today.

In the end, as soon as we got the marching papers to move to Istanbul, I had our bags packed and waiting in the car before he had time to change his mind.

Today, it is different. I am different. The language is no longer a struggle (although it continues to have its moments). And I have lived in enough countries to recognise just how great it is here. I spend a lot of time noticing the little things that make life easier.

Like, window sills. Yep, love’em. Big wide window sills that make excellent spaces to put pots of flowers. Or pots of fresh herbs, or a few pretty things to look at…

“A little bit chatty”

“By learning to discover and value our ordinariness, we nurture a friendliness toward ourselves and the world that is the essence of a healthy soul.”  Thomas Moore

“A little bit chatty” was written on the first report card that Miss Eight ever brought home.  Even today, I can’t tell you what else the report said, most of it wonderful I suppose, but this, I remember.

It struck home with a blow.  Most of my life, I had pretty much the same thing written on every report card I ever brought home too.  The sound of my voice seemed to aggravate my teachers beyond despair, to the point, that a certain math teacher once resorted to throwing a chair at me, in a vain attempt to get me to shut up.

Recently, in a passing comment to Mr Dear Husband, I mentioned that people don’t seem very friendly at the supermarket.

“Well, what are you doing to them?”  He inched a little to the right, and put up his hands into a classic boxing pose.

“What do you mean doing?  I just chat to them while I am waiting in the queue!”  I am feeling a little indignant… could I have made another blunder in the complicate world of German etiquette?

Mr Dear Husband cleared his throat a little, took a deep breath… “It could be, in fact quite possible, well maybe…”

“Oh get on with it please!!”  Now I am sensing that something unpleasant is coming.

“Honey, people just don’t chat with complete strangers here.”  He started doing that squinty thing with his eyes… and twisting his hands together.

HUH? Confusion.  “How can it be that they don’t chat… what else is there to do while you are waiting in a queue?  It’s not like you can flick through the latest magazines as your groceries are shot-gunned through the Aldi checkout.”

Mr Dear Husband did that tiny shake of his head and slight nibbling on his bottom lip.  That is code for ‘No chance she is going to let me get away with this one’.  I let him go… very Diane Fossey of me.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realised he was right.  The reactions to my ‘chattiness’ have ranged from a half-way friendly nod to outright hostility.  On one occasion, there I was just chatting away about some product or other with the lady in front (she was a non-German born chick too), when she mentioned that it wasn’t her groceries we were discussing.  I turned slowly to find the tallest woman on the planet staring down at me with such a grim face that it gave me nightmares for a week.  I didn’t even attempt to chat to her…

It is something so Australian to chat when you are standing in a queue, be it about the weather or the lousy service, what you are cooking for dinner tonight… it doesn’t matter, you just chat.

Germans don’t do chat, it would appear.  It goes a long way toward explaining why I get strange looks when they see me coming… the sort of looks usually reserved for the weird, wild-haired lady that lives with 47 cats.

Full as a Boot

Too full of cookies and goose to write anything worth reading, so I will just give you a photo post.  My camera is playing up, at least the Macro seems to be doing something weird, so they are not great, but you get the picture.

Went for a walk yesterday and fell over came across this branch.  It gave me an idea.  Turned out pretty good, I think! I can enjoy a few minutes of self appreciation before Mr Dear Husband arrives back from Madagascar and asks why there is a stick hanging in his living room.

This morning got off to cracking start.  Not sure if I dreamt it or it was real, but my door bell rang at 6:30am.  I lay in bed trying to work out what was real and what was not.  Figured that if there really was someone at the front door, they would press the button again… nothing happened so I went back to sleep… for about 14 minutes, then Miss 8 decided it was time to check out whether St Nikolaus had paid us a visit.  He had!

Once we had eaten our body weight in chocolate and biscuits, it was time to head over to the Outlaws for Lunch.  Miss Eight decided try on the Nikolaus decoration boot… then couldn’t get it off!  Whoops!  She pulled the “If you take my photo I am going to beat you up” face… so I did… Never dare me to do anything…

So then I suggested that we might look into cancelling Christmas this year, and she pulled her “this is what Mum looks like when she comes down for breakfast every morning” face…

You get what you pay for when shopping in discount stores for children.  It never pays to pick up the last kid on the shelf, marked down to $19.99

When the Mother Outlaw says “Your goose is cooked!” I get nervous.  I am pretty much everything she ‘didn’t’ want in a daughter-in-law.  It is a credit to that woman just how much she endures and still manages to smile when she is around me (personally I think she is plotting all the ways she can hook up her son with a good, catholic, German girl).  But hell!  The woman can cook!

When everyone else passed out after lunch, Miss Eight and I ploughed our way through another 20 batches of cookies.  My edible tree ornaments turned out fabulous… shame I forgot to put a hole in them before baking… guess we will just have to eat them all.

The big guy in Red

Being a mix of Australian and German, the whole deal with Santa, Nikolaus, Weihnachtsmann, Kristkind, etc has always been messy.

So we just enjoy ALL the Big Guys in Red.

The first is coming tonight. He sometimes brings a mate… a dark character called Knecht Ruprecht. It is the day of reckoning, when children are called on anything that Mum might have missed during the year. Before they go to bed, they polish their boots (hmmm gortex and boot polish, hello?) and leave them neatly in front of their bedroom door… with the hope they will wake the next morning and find them filled with lovely goodies. Nuts, clementines, chocolates, cookies and small gifts are the norm.

We started early. Jumped out of bed and fired up the oven. So far, we have managed to shake together a couple of batches of coconut macaroons (Miss 8 loves them), Vanilla Kipfler, and we have the dough resting in preparation for the edible Christmas tree ornaments. And just to make the house smell nice, we stuck cloves into oranges and mandarins, wrapped a ribbon around them and tied on a cinnamon stick.

George Michael (half of WHAM… who was the other guy?) is warbling away on the radio. Come on, sing with me. It has been ages since we had a singalong:

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart
But the very next day, You gave it away
This year, to save me from tears
I'll give it to someone special
Last Christmas, I gave you my heart
But the very next day, You gave it away
This year, to save me from tears
I'll give it to someone special

Turkey in a Yellow Sack

“I'm happy that I have brought laughter because I have been shown by many the value of it in so many lives, in so many ways.” Lucille Ball

So here is how it went down.

There was a few more hours of frenzied panic, of measuring ovens, of searching for over-sized baking dishes. Then I could contain no more.  When in doubt, pass the buck.  There was an email sent:

Dear Mr Husband,

It would appear that I have made a slight error.  In place of the golden, delicious roast Turkey we were planning for Christmas lunch, I may have ordered a Pterodactyl.  Not sure that it is going to fit in the oven.  I know you are out running the world from Madagascar, but when you have a minute could you please fix it.

Signed, The Wife

And he did.  There is a lot to be said for having a husband that knows how to keep himself and his children safe from a marauding, hysterical female.

With that little job out of the way, it was time to move on to the next job on the list.  Rubbish. Yep, it has become the bane of my life.  I can remember living in Germany 20 years ago and being tormented by my vegetarian, eco, Greenie, bio, tree-hugging, organic, hand-woven, unwashed neighbour.  She would regularly go through our garbage bin, and selectively lay out any offending, incorrectly recycled items for the rest of the street to view.  I developed such an animosity toward her, that I often dreamt of sneaking down to her apartment and cutting the tassels off her undyed, hand-spun, hand-knitted beanie… for no other reason than it was just plain ugly and made her look like she was walking the earth with a dead squirrel on her head.

Sorting your garbage is almost a full time job in Germany.  Normally I wouldn’t make such a fuss, but after taking delivery of 160 boxes packed full of plastic and paper, well, quite frankly, I have recycling coming out the waazoo.  In addition, each delivery of white goods has included a substantial amount of polystyrene, which needs to be broken down and put into  a ‘Gelbe Sac’.  By the time I had used up all the yellow bags, the cellar was looking like a birthing centre for that creature that had its arse kicked by Sigourney Weaver in Alien.  But finally it was my turn to put them all out for collection.  I waited until after dark, in fear that the reaction from the neighbours would be more than I could take after the Turkey drama.  Then I stood nervously at the kitchen window waiting for the ‘truck’ to arrive… and at 6:54am this morning, it did.  Arrive that is… then it just kept driving… right on by my house…

PANIC!!! What the hell!  I pulled my coat over my PJ’s and dived through the door, ready to give chase to the incompetents.  As I turned through the front gate and started to sprint down the road in hot pursuit, I tripped over something.  A Yellow Sac… and not one of mine.  The blinking lights of the garbage truck turned the corner and I looked up the street to see that, in fact, ALL the Yellow Sacs were still there.  Hmmm… oops… “Oh Hi Mr-Neighbour- leaving-for-work & your lovely Mrs-Neighbour-who-likes-to-watch-through-the-net-curtains—Yep, just out for a little jog, yep… have a nice day too!”.

Twenty minutes later another truck arrived and dutifully collected all the pods yellow sacs.  The birthing centre is now closed for the holidays, and the people across the street were heard whispering something about ‘Lucille Ball” as I passed them by today.

Heartectomy

“Something about being with my mother for longer than an hour turns off my heart. For 24-48 hours after seeing her I feel nothing for nobody. Really. Nothing. I am like Spock. It is as if being with her gives me a heartectomy. I can't even feel love for He-weasel. It is always scary when it happens. Happily, my heart always comes back---at least so far it has.” La Belette Rouge

I read this on another blog, and it has stuck with me ever since. This morning I was grouchy, seriously grouchy. The sort of grouchy that can make a small girls’ beautiful, big, brown eyes fill up with tears and hurt. Inside of me is a pressure that I am creating myself. It is the ‘I want a Doris Day perfect Christmas’ syndrome. When, in fact, it is looking more like a ‘Marge Simpson Christmas’.

Mr Dear Husband has done a bunk. He is off running the world and won’t be back for two weeks… just four days before half of Australia arrives on my doorstep. You can imagine how that conversation went…

“Honey, I have to go to Madagascar (made that bit up to protect the innocent) again tomorrow.” He laid this on me about 9:30pm the eve before.

“Aha…” My nanna always told me, if you can’t say anything nice, say nothing at all… But inside my head, I was having a serious wig-out. Visions of stuffing mince pies up his nose danced in my head.

Christmas without resentment. That would have to be the goal for the day. Resist the urge to curl up on the sofa and do nothing. To not eat all the chocolate that has been safely hidden away for St. Nikolaus in three days. I’m thinking I might need one of those poodle skirts that Doris always wore, and some Gwen Stefani Red Lipstick… perhaps that would help my heart to ‘come back to me’.

More important than that, I need someone to reassure me that I have not ordered a turkey that will be too big to fit in the oven!! Might have gone a little overboard, we are 9 adults and 2 children and I have a 7.5kg (or 16 pound) beast being delivered. Too much? What have I done! It’s freaking me out!