Happy Xmas

I haven’t received a Xmas present in years, nor have I given one. I’m not sure what that says about me, good or bad. Sam and I don't do presents. And neither do my family any longer. We all got together Xmas Eve for Xmas lunch.

Xmas Dinner

We had Xmas dinner in the country with my sister and brother inlaw and nieces and their long time boyfriends.

We took champagne and $50 worth of cakes from the Italian cake shop in Fitzroy. I think it is nice to take local produce when you go visiting people, family and friends. I'm not sure I'd go as far as to say you shouldn't turn up empty handed, but it is nice to take something to share.

We had cheese and biscuits and champagne on the veranda. Then we ate prawns. After that, we headed inside and ate Xmas dinner, your traditional variety, with wine. We had pavlova and plum pudding for dessert. Then coffee and Italian biscuits. 

After we'd eaten, we took the 10 dogs down to the damn where they chased a ball in and out of the water. All the dogs get along well. 

The corgis observed.

Brun kept getting the ball away from the more athletic kelpies and cattle dogs. He kept getting cheered along, especially when he swam probably for the first time. Bulldogs should have life jackets on around water. I don't think he has ever been called 'a little nugget' more.

It was a lovely day. The fresh air of the country. The rolling paddocks, sweeping up and down.

Xmas Lunch

5.30am. I get up and take Brun out for a wee. He jumps up on the side of the bed and rubs his fuzzy face against mine when he wants to go outside. Yeah, I know, about the time?

7.30am. I get up and have a shower. It still feels strange to get up and shower straight away. We're heading to my niece, Kellie's place just over the NSW border for Xmas lunch. She said there was plenty of room for us to stay, if we didn't feel like driving home. We said we would.

Sam gets up.

7.45am. I make porridge and coffee, of course. We have to get going, no time to waste, but I still make breakfast, of course, I’m a breakfast kind of boy.

Buddy gets up too.

Brun is last out of bed.

9.15am. I’m at ChemistWarehouse in Collingwood getting my scripts filled. Cute [name of pharmacist] is on shift. What a cutie pie.

We head up the Hume. It is raining when we leave Melbourne. We’re aiming for an ETA of 12.30pm. 3 hours.

We stop at two road stops to give the bulldogs a wee stop, and a wee stop for us. The sun comes out after we leave Melbourne.

We turn off to Shepparton. As we were approaching Shepparton Sam exclaims, “Oh shit!”

“What?” Had I nearly run something over? What?

“I forgot my laptop,” he said. 

He is on call all over the holidays, if something goes wrong at work. “But you packed my laptop in the backpack.”

“I know.”

“Well, didn’t that trigger anything?”

“Obviously not.”

We had a few kilometres of panic, until Sam worked out what he could do. He could use my laptop and probably use the forgot password function. “That should work,” he said. “Or I call my colleague who isn’t on call and ask him for a favour.”

“Crisis solved,” I said.

“He won’t be happy.”

We turn off to Tatura/Murchison. There seem to be an awful lot of turn offs.

“Isn’t there a more direct way?” I ask. Sam has gone by Apple Maps.

We get to [just over the NSW border] just before 1pm. In time for lunch. It was hot over the border.

 

There were 9 dogs at the family gathering. The bulldogs just barrelled outside to greet the dog pack of 5 face on, as bulldogs do. Kammo was kept separate as he doesn’t get on with others. Benny arrive a bit later.

Buddy, 11 years old.

Brun, 2 years and 11 months. 

Billie (niece Lucy’s dog) 1 ½.

3 legged Kally (niece Kellie and her boyfriend Tuppin’s) She had cancer in her leg a few years ago. She keeps up with all the other dogs just fine. I’m not sure I’d want a 3 legged dog, stupid, I know.

Mack (Kellie and Tuppin’s) Black and tan kelpie/Aussie cattle dog x, looks like a Kelpie and is the matching pair to Mog

Mog (My sister, Roz & her husband Grant) Black and tan kelpie, matching pair to Mack except a little smaller. She is like Mack’s shadow when they are together, moving in perfect sync. They are really cute to watch.

Pumpkin (Roz & Grant) 11 year old brown kelpie. She's very quiet, really in her twilight years.

Benny, I think 2 years old, black and white (Tuppin’s sister’s dog) gorgeous dog, the other dogs wouldn’t let him play. It was like he wasn’t picked for the team 

Kammo (Tuppin’s dad’s dog) Kind of a brown Border Collie x. Tuppin’s dad kept him under control when he was out with the others. He is older, I think 8, or 9 years old.

The dogs had their moments, a few of them didn’t get along initially, Mack and Billie were against Benny, but they all seemed to get along in the end. Roz was a gun with the hose when the dogs played up.

Kellie threw the ball for the dog pack, then Roz threw the ball for the dog pack. We sat outside, it was dry and dusty. It was nice sitting outside, don’t get me wrong, a nice afternoon was had by all, especially the dogs, but the wind did blow up the dirt occasionally in gusts. Their lawn was dead, pretty much. It looked as though it had been really dry up there.

 

We ate prawns first up, cooked. I’m used to fresh, or is that cold, with sauce, not hot.

Then it was Xmas lunch, of course. All the normal stuff. Chicken, turkey, ham. Roast veggies. Roast carrots with honey. Mango salad. Fresh bread that didn’t travel well, too hot and dry.

There was cheese cake and pav, and plum pudding with brandy butter for desert. 

There was lots of alcohol, of course. 

We decided not to stay. Oh, just because it is nice to sleep in your own bed. And Sam had forgotten his computer, and all. And Buddy had started to limp. And the drive up had been easy, so it didn’t seem like a chore to drive home.

 

We leave [just over the NSW border] maybe at 6.15pm. I asked them what way they would go as we were pulling out. Turn left at Elmore – have you ever heard of Elmore? – and head to Heathcote. 

I drank two glasses of champagne and two glasses of red wine, in 6 hours. I said to Sam, “I’m sure that doesn’t put me over the limit.”

He shrugged.

What is it, 2 drinks in the first hour then one drink per hour after that. I was counting on my fingers as we drove away.

We drove down the Northern Highway B75. It was nice, green and leafy. Dare I say picturesque. The towns were pretty, with nice architecture.

We drove through Rochester. I thought of Father Bill, from my old youth group days. He left Balwyn for Rochester all those years ago.

7.45pm. Heathcote. We got to the IGA, which looked closed from the outside so much so I almost didn’t bother checking to see if it was open, but it was. It was big and happening inside with plenty of shoppers. Funny how it looked shut down from the outside. I guess the locals know.

I bought a Mother Energy drink (my go to drink for a long drive, in fact the only time I drink them) and a packet of white chocolate and macadamia biscuits. Sam looked disparagingly at my purchases and he went over after me and came back with two packets karaage chicken and two packets of octopus balls. He fed them to me in the car as we drove along.

The Northern Highway is a nice drive back from NSW, it’s not divided, but it was fairly quiet traffic wise anyway.

We got home at 9.30pm.

We both had showers to wash the sweat and the dust off.

11.11pm. We go to bed.

Lights out 11.40pm.

So, that was Xmas. Not really the same as when mum and dad were alive, but that is what it is now, I thought, as I drifted off to sleep. Mum's been dead for 6 years, dad has been dead for 20 years. Weird to think that is where I am at, as my life flashes before my eyes lying there in the dark? 

Isn't that what happens when you die? Your life flashes before your eyes? I chuckle to myself, it would want to be more dramatic than the flash before my eyes I just had. You'd want it to be surely, if it was the end.

I think I'd feel gypped if it was that pedestrian. You'd want it to be a fanfare. This Is Your Life'esque.

But I must have fallen asleep pretty soon after that... and I didn't die, obviously.

Happy Xmas

Xmas kind of sneaks up on you, doesn't it? Well, I think it does. It is the beginning of December, then in no time we are halfway into December, and suddenly Xmas is a few days away.

And, then, there you are, it is Xmas Day and I am watching my favourite YouTube car channel’s Xmas Special and Sam is cleaning out the pond.

I haven't bought any Xmas presents for years. Sam and I don't buy each other Xmas presents and my family has everything it needs, there is no landfill I could get them (that they don’t already have). I don't know if that makes me really smart, or one sad bastard? I'm still not sure.

We’ll get together tomorrow for Xmas lunch.

Happy Xmas everyone.

The Work Xmas Party

5:40 am. I’m up because I have to get everything done today. Get my work done, go to the Xmas party, take Buddy to the vet, all timed perfectly like a Swiss watch. It's go to be.

(And Brun woke me up with his fuzzy face shoved into mine as he jumps up on the side of the bed. “Hey, wake up.”)

We took Bud and Brun for a walk along the Yarra on the weekend and Buddy came up lame, for no apparent reason, and has been barely able to walk ever since.

He’ll be 11 years old next week. When he was 5 he was diagnosed with a luxating patella, a slipping knee cap, which there is an operation for, but the vet told us he wasn’t really lame enough back then – it was just when he first got up from sleeping – and his lameness stopped not long after that and he hasn’t shown any signs of it since, until now. The problem being, at 5 years old an anaesthetic isn’t a problem, but when he gets to 11, particularly for a flat faced dog, it becomes quite dangerous for him. So, you can understand, when I say I was hoping it wasn’t that.

The vet has him on an emergency cancellation list (actual appointments were some like January 20^th) so he could go at any time, which is really inconvenient today which is my second busiest day. And then if he doesn’t go today he could go tomorrow, which is my busiest day with deadlines. I don’t know how I’m gonna get this all done, complete all the work I have, and do the rest. Hopefully it all just works out and that they will want to see him at, well, I guess 5 pm would be the best time. Then I could get my work done, go to Xmas lunch, then go to the vet. Or right now. “Can you come now?” The worst possible time would be lunch time today.

It’s all well and good that Sam swans about with no driving license, but today is when it comes into sharp focus that it’s really fucking inconvenient.

7.30am. Sam got up.

I’m finished most of my work by 8am. I made porridge and coffee.

I had to get everything done before the Xmas Party lunch. Then hand it all over to Boris.

11.11am. It started raining. I was going to ride my bike to the [name of lunch place] for stupid buggery Xmas lunch. Oh, fuck the rain. 

Could I be a no show? “Oh no, we miss you so, it will be so lovely to see you, Christian, after all this time working from home, say the girls in the office. We miss your funny stories.” (Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely like the members of my team, but miss them? Nah)

12.15pm. I’m ready to leave for the Xmas party on my bike, I’ve got all the gear on ready to leave, helmet, stupid Kris Kringle present in a back pack, and the rain starts to fall. Grrrr! Damn you to hell rain!

So, I have to find an alternative way of getting there? Do I drive? No fun driving to a Xmas party, even if I don’t end up drinking. (It is one of the rules 101, I think it is rule number 82, don’t drive to a work Xmas party. You may think it is going to be ticketyboo, but there may also be a very valid argument for getting tanked. Don’t drive)

Sam springs into action. He finds what public transport I should be catching.

I catch an 86 tram and then connect with a 546 bus. Sam brings up a schedule on my phone and a map. (seemingly out of no where) 

The bus was due 5 minutes after I get off the tram, however, I wait, and I wait, and I wait, and I wait in the rain, that really annoying rain that kind of falls sideways. Half an hour later the bus finally arrives. I am the only person on the bus.

I ask the bus driver to tell me where to get off.

Just as the bus driver is giving me the instructions to get off the bus, the vet calls. I am listening to the bus driver and I don’t answer the phone. What would be the point of answering the phone now? I can’t take Buddy now. As I cross Lower Heidelberg Road contemplating calling the vet back, I get a message from them, Can’t see Buddy, sorry. 

I call Sam and get him to call the vet and discuss it with them. I’m still worried Buddy has some major damage, even if he is getting better every day. Sam gets an appointment for 9am in the morning. That’s not bad. (How the hell did he do that?) I have all my work done and Boris isn’t usually done with her side of it until mid to late morning, so not bad, all doable.

I head down the embankment to the boat house.

I head into the bar, my boss Tony Rivers is there organising drinks for everyone. I ask for shiraz, always the safest bet. He tells me everyone is downstairs. I head down to the plastic bubble in which we’d been deposited out of the light rain that was still falling.

I sit next to Jason Jones, who I note is in a pair of black track pants that fit him tantalisingly well. (Way to go Jase) I sit opposite Big Ange and (Theyappybogan, renamed) mum. (I do enjoy making up names for my work colleagues and sometimes when my opinion of them changes then too must the pseudonym). (Theyappybogan, renamed) mum holds court. (I guess someone has to. Ha ha) Big Ange does ‘the chatty chat chat’ too. They make a good pair.

Bowls of sweet potato chips and dipping sauces are lined up down the middle of the table.

Tony Rivers comes and sits with us too, and he also likes a chat. 

(Theyappybogan, renamed) mum talked (nonstop) about her kids. (roll of the eyes) She is quite the extrovert, picking up on every little thing everyone had said, all the way down the table. (good ears, if nothing else) Her kids call her 10 times during the lunch. She says she should teach them to be more independent, but she likes being depended upon. (Yeah, good onya, I think, for putting those sorts of kids out into the world. Mother of the year?) (Do you think there is any truth in the idea that helicopter mums are, actually, destroying civilisation as we know it? The jury is still out?)

Big Ange talks about her kids, but, you know, sprinkled with other topics. Work anecdotes. We’ve all worked for multiple law firms, myself included, so we do who’s who of the legal profession. I’m the only one who’s worked for the black law firm, which gets denigrated by all present, but the other law firms for which I’ve work most present have had a stint at.

Tony Rivers talks about his running, all around the world. His next run is across England. He is quite a go getter. Super busy, an over achiever, and yet, pretty much, always happy, always has time for his staff.

Boris comes and chats, I tell her about Buddy’s leg, she tells me about her dogs’ sore paw, most likely infected with a grass seed.

We had a big table, everyone was there. Oh, except Mia Papas, I don’t know where she was. I missed Mia… you know, when I realised she wasn’t there much later.

I ate fish & chips.

I had flourless chocolate cake and coffee for dessert.

Goong Chung gave out the Kris Kringle presents. Everyone’s presents seem to be in substantial brown paper bags all sitting next to one another just behind us on a bench. Mine was in a single use plastic bag, being used for a second time, and Goong Chung missed it. I have to tell him there is a present in the sad little white plastic bag. It’s okay, he gets it and Betty Boo gets her present. I only vaguely look at her reaction, it could have been positive, perhaps. (Oh I know, I should care, but seriously, I fulfilled the brief, a present for $20 to $30, anything beyond that was way out of my interest zone) 

I get some bit of landfill which I’m sure I pull convincing faces of appreciation over. (You know, being a secret Santa, you never know who was responsible for your bit of tat so you have to smile convincingly for all present just in case)

Tony Rivers wanted to go and play on the boats on the river, which was part of the promised experience, but most of us believed it was too cold. I certainly felt the fact I had got my fat arse there and on time was about as much as I was prepared to endure.

Once the presents were given out, and the coffee was drunk, we all got up and headed back up to the carpark like Brown’s Cows. (Whoever Brown was?) They were all organised into lifts, with the rest being rounded up by Tony Rivers to be whisked back to our CBD office.

I’d said I was fine, that I’d organise my own way, I didn’t want to go to the office, after all, after I had done so, I realised I could well have been dropped part of the way.

Then I was racked with indecision. Stupid me. I know I said, but… oh, the uncertainty to go with who? To do what? They were getting Ubers back to the CBD. Who paired up with who? What to do? Don’t you hate being the odd one out even if it is by your own doing? Speak up? Why don’t you speak up? Then don’t wonder why you have been left out? So uncertain of who you are? So unsure. Grrr.

I trudge off to the bus stop, before I am thought of as a voyeur… that is looking upon those who have much better organisational skills than yourself.

4.43pm. I’m sitting at the bus stop heading home. 

I wonder if people think I’m strange? (I’m sure no one else picked up on my moment of indecision, let’s face, people only care about themselves)

The bus just never seems to be coming? Same problem I had with the buss getting here. It is as if they are only running on the hour and not ever half an hour. (Who’d have thought?)

5.15pm. The stupid bus finally comes.

I pull long grey hairs out of my nose, as the bus does its best attempt to inflict motion sickness on those that travel within, and wonder if anyone noticed at the lunch? Too much time spent in lock down, I think? (I must have a word to Sam when I get home)

I swap over to the tram at the Queens Parade shops.

5.45pm. I’m home.

Ordeal over and done with for another year, and everyone came out unscathed. I only had two glasses of red wine, makes quite a change to Xmas parties passed.

Xmas Lunch

 Sam and I cooked Xmas lunch as the Fletcher Xmas day, for my sister and brother inlaw. My brother didn't come down from Brisbane. Mum and dad are dead, so that is the best the Fletchers can manage now a days. So different to times passed, time passes, things change. All those huge family Xmas' with all my cousins seem but a distant memory.

My sister had been the one to suggest today. She came up with a few options, we could join her inlaws on Xmas day at her place, which I wasn't so keen. Other that that, she gave the impression she didn't want to do it all again, herself, and that, perhaps, I should.

Seriously?

I said sure, not really being at all sure when I said it. But, you know, just wing it, how badly could it go wrong? She did suggest we could go out to a restaurant, but I was willing to give it a go. I mean, I have before, but those times have been few and far between.

Why not, I thought.

Sam cooked porkbelly with a plum sauce and lamb stuffed with cranberries with roast vegetables. I made a plum pudding semifreddo and a trifle for desert.

It all turned out well.

The bulldogs bounced around, always happy with visitors.

I was going to make Xmas cookies alternately icing them with red and white icing, but I didn't. Maybe next year.

 

We should get rid of Xmas, it has none of the original meaning to the vast majority of people - was the original meaning invented by Coke a Cola? It is now an orgiastic present buying, and food eating extravaganza, let's face it.

To make it more relevant to the real world, we should move it to new year. We could have a public holiday on New Years Eve, give presents New Years Day and make Boxing Day January 2nd. 

End the year with the new year, come on, it makes far more sense to the modern world.

A new year, now that is something to celebrate.

Xmas, really, is just a habit we forgot to break, let's face it.

Xmas Lunch

Okay, today was the Fletcher family Xmas lunch, what there is left of it now that mum and dad are dead and their grandchildren have all grown up, at my sister’s place in the country. Xmas is for kids. Getting together is nice though. I have to say that, it is expected, after all. No, it was nice.

It was going to be lovely in Melbourne 29 degrees, but 38 in [name of country town], not so lovely. The bulldogs had to stay home, first Xmas they have missed ever, 38 degrees is too hot for them. It would have been Brun’s first.

We took David’s car. We’ve been looking after it while he has been faffing about trying to sort out his life. I promised him I’d keep the battery charged, so a run to the country was just the ticket.

Lunch was nice. I think Gill and Grant went to the least amount of trouble in the years they have been doing Xmas lunch. Gill said she had had four Xmas lunches, which may explain it, she said she had enjoyed Xmas a lot. But, maybe, that was the booze. I can’t help but think ours got the last priority, hence the date.

My brother and his wife were there. Xmas is the only time I see them. They bought presents for everyone, apparently, they didn’t get the memo. My sister in law lives to shop.

Two of the four nieces were there, my sister’s kids. I don’t know where the other two were, I didn’t ask, I guess I should have. Nyr!

It was… um… interchangeable with other years, but, Xmas is a bit like that, now isn’t it. I didn’t give presents, I adopted a koala instead. [Well, that was what I said I did, and I have every intension, I just haven’t done it yet]

It was certainly hot.

We were home early in the afternoon and I slept on my own couch.

The Day After Xmas

Boxing Day, the bridesmaid's day. Never the main event. Always the afterthought. Forever the exhale. The loosening of the belt. The sit down. The sigh. The step back. The stop.

The day the present givers get to reward themselves for presents well bought during the December present giving festival, the modern meaning of Xmas.

Another present festival completed for another year. It is what we all live for now-a-days; presents, food, and then holidays until the new year starts again. And we can repeat it all again, reboot, as this is the day it all, really, starts again – officially January 1st.

So, we pimp it out and pump it up and give everyone an excuse to spend more, what else could say Xmas so precisely, than an orgy of spending and consumerism?

Spend up people, it is the new normal.

The Princess Margaret of days, always the consolation prize. Never the real thing. Enjoy. Like Margaret did. She got to take pills, and drink booze and fuck Mick Jagger, because she meant nothing.

Happy Xmas

Happy Xmas

I spent the sum total of $3 on xmas presents this year. I think that is pretty good going.

It's Xmas

We were going to a Xmas BBQ at Rachel’s, her annual Xmas “do”. I had been allocated a cheesecake to bake, which I baked yesterday. It was a hot day, so I had to transport the cheesecake and the sour cream topping down to Rachel’s place, half an hour away.

Sam wanted to buy an e-pen for the new (second hand) Surface laptop (He likes to use all of the laptops being a programmer, but don’t worry he’s Apple through and through) that he bought, from some guy in Oakleigh meeting in the carpark of some baby shop I’d never heard of. 

“Was Oakleigh on the way?”

“Yes.”

“How long will it take to get to Oakleigh?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “How will we transport the cheese cake to Rachel’s?”

“Why, don’t you know how far Oakleigh is?”

“In what am I going to transport the cheesecake?”

“E-pen?”

“Cheesecake?”

“The cake-carrier…”

“Half an hour, or so.”

“I’ll carry the cake.”

“We need to be in Oakleigh about 4.30pm, as we are due to Rachel’s at 5pm.”

“I’ll text him and say 4.30pm.”

“I’ve got everything packed.”

It was hot and as we drove south, the sun seemed to be beating down on the side of my face. We kept trying to extend the time so we didn’t arrive at Rachel’s as the first guest. We said we’d be there at 4.30pm. We said we’d text this guy when we were 5 minutes away. And then we said we’d be there between 4.30pm and 5pm. We left home at 4.30pm, and moments later he said he was already at the meeting spot. He said he didn’t mind waiting. He was really lovely, like one of those guys who are really too good to be true. Nothing was a problem, after which he said have a nice day. Not your usual car-boot salesman.

Far from being the first to arrive, I think we were the last to arrive. Rachel, Adam, Alexandra, Alexander, (we call them Alex and Alex) David (a different David to my close mate), Harry Whit, all the old gang were all there. Not that Harry Whit is a part of the old gang, he is David’s boyfriend. He is a nasty, bitter queen. I reckon his father hated his guts and his mother, although the salt of the earth type, naturally, she never really cut it as a good mother. He is a loud-mouthed, opinionated pain in the arse. I have never liked him. He is just too full of himself. I like calling by his full name, as it always sounds to me like I am saying half whit.

I said hello to Rachel first. Then I headed over to the bar to get some red wine where David was hovering. We kissed and chatted. David told me how well he’d done lately, financially, as he is quite pretentious too, of course, but he does have his sweet side too. Harry Whit is devoid of any such thing. They have bought a country property recently. “We’re going to sit on the deck and put our feet up,” he said. I kind of smiled across the dining room table at Harry, or the poisonous one, as Jill and I like to call him, and waved in his direction. He smiled his fake smile back at me. And the hellos were done.

I haven’t seen David for ages. He’d never met Sam, and Sam and I have been together for nearly 8 years. Pretentious people just irritate me, despite David and I having a secret that nobody knows.

The kids were there. We all now have grown up kids, the straight ones, none of the gay ones have kids, I guess that’s to come. Rachel’s daughter, Oreya, looked beautiful with a crew-cut platinum blond haircut. Charlotte, Alex and Alex’s’ daughter arrived for a while, before she headed out with some bloke for diner.

We headed outside to the smokers table and claimed our seats. I’d bought a packet of cigarettes just for the occasions, much to Sam’s chagrin.

We sat outside with Jesse and her kind of cute boyfriend Matt. Jesse got drunker and drunker and drunker and drunker, drinking espresso martini’s. She was using a martini glass, so with the amount of alcohol she consumed, and big hand gestures, many of us wore Jesse’s drinks. Lovely. Somehow, she mentioned something about me being a writer, to which I told her that I was, not something I would usually tell people, so I had to try and justify my writing history. Pretty quickly, I regretted that admission. Anyway, drunk, or not, Jesse is a hoot. We laughed and laughed.

Jesse questioned Sam as to why he didn’t drink, slurring as she spoke. Funny, the irony is always lost on drunks at that point. She questioned me about how little I was drinking, it always seems to be safety in numbers for drunks. I don’t know what possessed me, but I told her that I had always been a pot smoker and not much of a drinker. The next thing I knew, she had sidled up to me and was shoving a joint into my mouth, which I really didn’t want after consuming red wine, but she was insistent, as drunks always are, so I took very small puffs, hardly puffs at all, and she didn’t really notice, and she felt pleased with her gesture.

The food was amazing, Rachel is an amazing cook. So much food, so many choices. Every Xmas option was covered. Of course, different people bought different plates but, I think, Rachel did most of it. 

Everybody loved my cheesecake. 

“Oh my god, that is the most divine cheesecake.”

“It’s like a New York style cheesecake.”

“It is a New York style cheesecake,” I’d reply.

It is really not hard to make, really pretty easy, actually. Just throw it all in the Kenwood, and select beat. Okay, the foil and the water bath as you cook it is a bit fiddly, but not hard once you have done it once.

All the old gang gathered outside, at one point, and we discussed how long we had all known each other, which the non-gang members are always surprised about. We’ve all been friends since we were teenagers. 

We chatted about Sam, and my, Xmas trip up north. (boy) Alex asked if I was dropping into see my ex-girlfriend, Leah. I said no, and we all laughed, as Alex’s question was deliberately pointed, as he knows Leah and I have fallen out in recent years. 

Leah is one of the old gang, after all. To my surprise, everybody agreed that Leah Borg was far too much like hard work to be bothered with now. I thought that was interesting, but not surprising. It, actually, made me feel sad, despite my position on her now. Deep down, she is a great person, deep down. David told me that she did exactly the same thing to him as she had done to me… the whole ‘what are your 5 year goals’, ‘where can you see yourself in whenever’, all the same stuff. The corporate world has fully taken her over in recent years. Is it a Sydney thing?

I gazed at David as he spoke and my mind went back to the days when we were all friends. David and I were, kind of, best friends, I guess. I wondered what happened to that? Well, David wasn’t pretentious back then, he was sweet. We didn’t stay friends, David and I, not really.

David talked about his money and how well he has done finically, which is normal for him. Adam was Adam, sweet, but kind of ‘surface’. Oh, that’s not very nice of me. Everybody would conclude that Adam is “lovely.” Alexandra was her normal self, funny, down to earth, self-deprecating. They are off to Mallacoota, as they do every year. She laughed as she told me. Alexander was funny, with his wry humour, asking me if I still lived in the same house, and if I was ever going to get around to renovating it. He doesn’t smoke in front of everyone, don’t really know why, so I kept offering him cigarettes for the renovation quip. Harry Whit ignored us, me and Sam, which is par for the course. He stayed inside all night, well away from me, so I didn’t have to make small talk with it, which, you know, if everyone agrees, I am more than happy.

Adam and David mentioned their forthcoming weddings. But, of course. I wondered if there would be page boys and flower girls and wondered which of the brides would wear white. I’m guessing there would be doves released at the appropriate moment.

They all left en masse at 10pm. Alexander was the designated driver and he decided that it was time, so he rounded them all up in his inimitable style, as only Alex could.

David had wedding cake samples in his hands as he left. I asked him what kinds, he responded with, “Very expensive kinds, that’s what.”

No, David, I meant the flavour, I thought. I don’t care how much you are paying for them.

I said good bye to David. “Enjoy your retirement in the country,” I said. We both laughed. Then I turned and the poisonous one was there, so I stretched out my hand, just as I realised he was trying to get out without saying goodbye to me. Oh, that would suit me too, I thought. Could I just pull my arm back and ignore him? No, I couldn’t, I had committed by that point and I had to follow through. Oh, it made me want to wretch. Kiss kiss, in the air. That was it, I said little. (I reported this into Jill and she enjoyed it nearly as much I did)

We left at not long after. Rachel did a Jill bitch as we left. She was drunk. She seems to have issues with Jill and her money. “Why does she want to come back to Melbourne and work,” Rachel slurred. “Just sell some shares. Just sell some shares.”

I’m not really sure why Rachel cares? I thought Jill working was a good thing, even if it didn’t really matter what I thought. It was up to Jill, whatever she wants to do.

Sam and I headed home. I’d only had two glasses of red wine, but it still makes me think when I am heading back into the city on a Saturday night. And there was the matter of that joint that Jesse had shoved into my mouth.

Xmas Dinner

We left our place around 4.30pm. It was a gorgeous day, as it turned out, just the ticket for driving to the country.

We got to Kyneton just after 6pm. The Kelpies, Pumpkin and Rocky were very excited to see Buddy. They ran around in their dog pack until the arse sniffing was complete.

All of my family gathered together, what is left of it, in one room. (Oh, I guess there is the mad lot from my mum’s side, but as I haven’t even met some of them, I feel justified not having counted them as family… well, I never counted them)

We ate BBQ lobster and prawns in a butter sauce as entre. (The prawns, essentially, were soaking in butter) We all talked about our high cholesterol later as though it was a mystery.

Actually, we were down a couple of dogs this year on other years, as my niece’s dogs are now in New Zealand. We sat outside on the big table, the dogs sitting next to us gazing up. Buddy took full advantage for a dog who never gets fed at the table.

There was roast dinner, turkey, chicken, pork, ham, and plum pudding and raspberry pavlova. No bon-bon party hats this year, though.

I got a big tub of M&Ms. Like I need that.

The nieces chatted enthusiastically all night.

My sister got drunk.

We left at 10.30pm. I’d only had two glasses of wine.

Buddy was funny at the end when he realised we were going, he hightailed it to the car. “Take me home to my lounge room, I’m sick of sitting on the back veranda looking in through the window.” Dogs aren’t allowed inside at my sister’s place.

It was plain sailing home. It had been a gorgeous day, one in which you were confident to go out just in shorts and t-shirt and crocs, (yes, crocs at Xmas, head hanging in shame… but, it was the country) it has been my holiday outfit. The night sparkled as we shot through it, down the Caulder, on a big strip of winding liquorice, it’s like driving home from Bolago.

That Was Family, We Did The Xmas Thing Already

We had a family Xmas morning tea, with my lovely Auntie and my cousins.

I looked around Marie’s house, it has the look of the elderly about it, the décor looks elderly. It all looks old and dated, the same furniture Marie had in their first house, recovered in a regrettable fabric in the eighties. First year without Uncle Al. I guess that is what we all become in the end, the first Xmas since [fill in the name] died and who we all remember for that Xmas, we say nice things, then we talk about other things.
We still have our family Xmas dinner tomorrow night. I don't see the point really, as we all just got together, but my brother and sister still seem keen.
 It means we have to drive to the country. "Do we really need to come," I say to my sister as we leave my Auntie's house.

"Yes, you do," my sister says.

My niece from NZ will be there. And my brother in law will be out of hospital. Oh, yes, my sister's husband fell off his bike. Yes, good timing, right on Xmas.

I hope none of them expect presents, I haven't bought one present this year. I haven't made one Xmas move, no tinsel, no Xmas wishes. Oh, one. Two. And the bulldog. (see below) He looks like Buddy. The girl I took over from, who is going in for cancer therapy, left it for me, as a Xmas wish. A girl I knew for two days, made more of a Xmas effort towards me, than I have towards my entire family. It is true. So, I can't even really claim the bulldog.

Happy Xmas

Xmas Eve

Lunch. That's lunch for two. It is very chewy

12.15. The sun is shining. It is a warm day. I have a dry mouth. 

Xmas Day

I woke up in a pool of sweat at 4am. My pillow and my tshirt were dripping. It was one of those hot still nights, the late night cool only started to blow around 5am. I got up and changed my tshirt, but I had to put on a light to find my favourite, worst tshirt. In the dark of the lounge, who cares what I wear? Sam hissed from the dark "Why are you getting up so early."
"Dunno, just because."
I scratch my arse.

I had a piss. The light was just beginning to break beyond the clouds. I gazed out the window. I looked back at the bed. I felt more awake than sleepy, I could feel that. A quick mental calculation. This is what happens when you go to bed at 10.30pm, I think. 7 hours sleep, I’d had 7 hours sleep. They say that is the optimal amount of sleep. Or the optimal number of hours… 7 hours.

I make coffee, open the doors and windows. Smoke two joints.

The back door blows shut, as this back door always does. By the time I opened it again, Buddy was laying out tummy down on the cool paving. He saunters in at 5.30am, but he wants to go to the big bed straight away. And twinkle toes disappears fairly smartly. I find him at the bottom of the stairs. I stand next to him and he looks up at me with his big brown eyes. I say, “Come on.” And he motors up those stairs, all paw drive, immediately. What he lacks in stature, he makes up for in strength. Sam hissed about being woken up again, but then Buddy jumps on to the bed, and Sam is instantly distracted by him.

6am and I make another coffee.

I was going to wrap Xmas presents, but I couldn’t find the good sticky tape. When I think such things I wonder if I am turning into my mother? I laugh to myself. The magic tape, I knew what I meant.

The air was cool as I sat bare-legged in the lounge room. I edited my photos. I have to go through them. I often take 3 shots of the same image. I culled out as many as I can, all of those exactly the same shots. And all the dud ones, of course. The truth to digital photography is to take many shots, but edit hard and only keep the one true image in the end.

At 7.30am, I decide to go and get some milk. Sam commandeers my milk run to a run for Buddy in the park on the way to Woollies.

We’re back at 8.30am.

We all make a pact that we are to leave the house by 11am, to drive to Jane’s for Xmas lunch.

Mark is bemused by our present of Rosie Batty’s life story. “Oh yes, very clever,” he says. A wry smile appears on his face.

We gave Luke, The Book of He. Funny, Mark read that and giggled through out.

We leave by 11.45am.

The Geelong Road comes to a stand still twice, three times on the way down to Torquay, that is how busy it was. Two of those occasions, it was just because road works signs had been left out by the sides of the road and Muggins and Mrs Muggins live their lives in such 21st Century abject fear that they slow down automatically, we’re in danger of becoming glass half empty kind of civilisations. We are no longer the free sprits who speed on through. “Ha ha, ho ho, it’s Xmas day.”

We fill the car up with juice. We switch the airconditioning to high and motor on down to the coast.

It is really hot. There have been rumours of bushfires at Wye River. I feel a kinship as we had a beach house there once. That is confirmed when we get to Jane’s. A tripled front weatherboard, kind of funky, kind of old. Huge block, so I was mentally renovating from the first moment I stepped out into the desolate back yard, baked momentarily in the sun while I positioned the picnic chair into the meagre shade and lit a smoke.

(brother) Will called as we were driving down. I called him back. He told me that there is a meeting of all the cousins on Sunday 03rd January, we’re all going. Everybody will be there. It is probably some catholic wake by stealth, you know how tricky the Xtian’s are. There could be singing and praying. Ha ha. So, that is something to look forward to. (raised eyebrows) Oh, I am such a hermit now a days, even the thought of such large gatherings brings me out in a touch of the agoraphobia’s.

Luke rolled joints before we left, we smoked one. Outside in the baking sun.

The lounge room was airconditioned, so the first thing we did was to insist that we ate at the dinning room table. It didn’t seem logical but it did, at least, seem neat. However, lunch was grand, plentiful, delicious, fun. Sucking on whole roast garlic. Jay had blue hair throughout.

We watched Sherlock Holmes’s Smarter Brother, after dinner. We laughed.

I think it is the first time I have thought, Jane bares a striking resemblance to Demi Moore. I’ve never thought that before.

Julien arrived back from Melbourne and Xmas lunch with his sister Kym. Toorak, Faulkner Park, something of that combination. It was good to see him. He seems great. Good old Jules.

We laughed. We smoked another joint. Julien smoked too. Welcome back. The sun burned every time we stepped out into it.

Fen wasn’t mentioned once, even if there were a couple of obvious huddles between Mark and Jane to which I wasn’t privy.
Jane has shut her brother completely out of her life. She doesn't feel as though she can trust him. She lives with a huge dog and does her self defence classes regularly, because of him, because of her brother. Fen has never met Jay and Jay is now 12 years old.

Jules and Jane were going down to the beach for a drumming ceremony, no doubt a part of some vegan hippie cooperative Jane is a part off now, at which point we bid our adieu.

It was hot driving home. The Geelong Road was packed with cars, but at least it kept flowing. There was just one trouble spots when a gaggle of black 4WDs gathered together driving at 98 kilometres an hour back to their MacMasions at Point Cook, or Mill Park. They just seemed to gather, taking up all the lanes together, all three lanes. Black Sante Fe, Black X5, turquoise X3, a charcoal grey Q7, a charcoal grey Toureg, silver Mercedes ML. The bitch (I’m sorry, she was. She had bleach blond hair and she talked on her phone the whole way through oblivious to anything that was going on around her) in the turquoise X3 would never get out of the right lane whilst doggedly sticking to 98 kph. The Indian in the spotless white Camry was guilty of the same crime. All the other urban assault vehicles just gathered for a time around these main perpetrators of road etiquette crime. 

A black G Class following me, in my GTI, snaking our way through the conglomeration together. We finally broke free of them. I felt camaraderie. He sped off into the distance, his V8 roaring, his twin tail pipes smoking, like any frustrated AMG G Class driver would, once we made it clear.

Mid point there was road works 80 kph signs for a considerable length of time, 20 kilometres, or so, maybe more. And while the rest of us slowed down to 80, the Indian in the gleaming white Camry and the bitch in the turquoise X3, still chatting away on her phone, caught up just enough, to gathered with us again, you know, just in front of us, when we wanted to return to 100 kph.

Grrrr!

We all accelerated away from them again.

We were home by the evening, 6, or 7. I was asleep on the couch by 10.30pm. I remember, vaguely, Sam waking me repeatedly until I got cross with him. (He reminded me in the morning) I don’t remember anything after that.

Happy Fucken Xmas

The xenophobic overtone withstanding, as long as you mean the true meaning of Xmas, a present giving period of excess, and not some second hand birthday attributed to some mythical man who never existed and who certainly was never born on the 25th December, then I am with you. 

Max out your credit cards, give people shit they don't ever need, or want, and eat yourself to your artery clogged death, what could be better?

Kriss Kringle

I was up at 6am. It was one of those cool mornings threatening to be a hot day.

It is Buddy’s birthday, he is 5 years old. I left the back door open, he wandered in a couple of times. He eventually snuffled over and sat next to me.

The birds chirped outside.

It’s lovely to have a nice clean terrace to step out on to to smoke your fags.

As I walked out the front door with Sam, I thought, I should be wearing a t-shirt like him, but I was keeping my one short sleeved shirt until tomorrow when it was going to be hotter, and then I realised tomorrow is casual clothes day and I can wear a t-shirt.

“Hang on, I have to change my shirt,” I said at the front door.

Once we were out on the street, shirt changed, Sam said, “See, now I have forgotten my head phones,” so he went back inside.

So much for being quiet for the still sleeping Luke.

I got to work just after 8am. Obese Olwyn and Fat Guts Carol Brady are already in when I get in. They are always the first to arrive, the two of them and me.

It was hot walking to work and I had built up a sweat walking in the heat, so it was nice to sit in private at my desk and fan myself until the sweats go away.

Mingey Van Wort arrived next, in Jackie O sunglasses. She pretty soon started talking on the other side of the office, sounding like a retarded child, with her harsh accent.


I got all the winey people, “why did this happen, why did that happen to me? This didn’t happen. Why?”

This and that happened for these reasons, if you think something else, send me your calculations. That did happen, what is telling you that it didn’t happen?

Yes, you did get the money transferred to you.

You didn’t get money transferred to you because I have never heard of you before. Talk to HR.

Around the next one went, in huge circles, and now HR had sent it back to me to deal with for a second time. They must be spinning around circles in HR.

You want to get paid sick days for the unpaid leave you received, a month before you got retrenched, which is now a month ago. By some dodgy stat dec you have produced?

Yes, I have looked into it and you were never unpaid. Now will you shut up.

I recalculated the mistakes everybody else had made, F included. I caught up completely from yesterday, I got the inbox emails down to two emails. I left at 4.30pm.

It was hot, as I walked home. The sun burned. I walked up the shaded side on each street, feeling like a vampire when I was in the sun. Afternoon sun being what it is.

I rolled a joint when I got home. Two. Maybe another really soon.

The sun blazed outside. The fan blew inside.

I went to the supermarket to buy supplies. I slung the two green bags over my shoulders like a back pack and walked it home. The sun was just fading into a gorgeous evening.

Luke made curry. It was yum. I must learn how to cook them.

We watched English renovation shows on teev. Everything record, fast forwarding through all the ads, naturally.

Otherwise, just sitting around smoking pot. It’s Xmas.

Sam went to bed at 10.30pm, like Nan Sam does. I was falling asleep on the couch contemplating going to bed, elegantly wasted.

I was falling asleep on the couch and wanting to go to bed when I remembered my Kriss Kringle present. For work. Bugger! Bum! Shit! Oh the pain. It crossed my mind momentarily to say I had an emergency with my mother and had to rush to her side, so I couldn’t buy the present, but that seemed like saying my dog ate my homework. So, I went to the supermarket at 11 pm to get my Kriss Kringle present. I was wrapping it at midnight. It seemed like a sad little present when I was done. Then Luke said, “You’ve wrapped it upside down.”

Damn!