2014 The Year of Permanent Slackery

I'm just not buying it Cam, I see no strays....

Wow, I've never taken a hiatus for this long before.  But let's face it, there's only so much crap a person can write about themselves, or poo, or who annoys me,  or about my kids - their poo, the ways in which they annoy me.....before it all gets a bit tired.  I s'pose I could talk about my pubes again, however that particular topic has been covered more recently by Cameron Diaz lately, and I have no hope of competing there.  It does turn out though that Cammy and I are on the same page when it comes to pubes.  Pubes are in!!!  Lasering your fanny flaps is out....or it will be one day, and then all you will have left is some bare draping skin, that, like the skin all over the rest of your body, will be adversely affected by gravity -......But enough, enough.  After all, like I said, who cares?....http://metro.co.uk/2014/01/16/cameron-diaz-why-im-on-a-quest-to-enlighten-women-about-pubic-hair-and-poo-4264278/  Well..... aparently a LOT of people - I think Cammy and her pube obsession was far more frequently googled than "real" news such as Australia's international crisis involving boat people and the Indonesians.  I saw this comparison of 'give a fuck' in a recent article by an Australian comedian - and sadly I too knew about the pubes, but not Tony's fuckery.....just smile and don't think about it too much, it's a far too sad reflection of the human race.

Mine doesn't look soooo bad does it?

So quite a bit has happened in the last month.  Christmas in Vienna, NYE in Tel Aviv, my 40th in Hertzliya Pituach (well some of the day anyway).....Several Hebrew classes, a few rounds of child sickness.......and something that mostly explains my out of action-ness......No, not alcohol or drugs.  It's that the battery of my computer exploded.  Yes exploded.  Did anyone even know this was possible?  Nope.  Me neither.  Well it is, so now you all have something else to worry about.  Will your computer explode, burn you and your family into disfigurement and set fire to your house......?

Apart from the explosion, none of the above actually happened to me, but rest assured, after I researched on the internet, I found that these extra fabulous outcomes were also possible.  For me, my computer just wouldn't turn on and it looked like it had been dropped.  Dropped hard in fact.  Smashed on the ground until the bottom of the laptop was warped and open.  My husband blamed me, I blamed the kids.  We took it to get fixed, and upon opening the bottom the battery had a second explosion in the repair man's office.  He said he'd never seen anything like it before.  But there has been many episodes just like my explosion only much much worse, see exhibits A, B and C below.

Nasty

Even more nasty

Miss Happy got a rather large burn on her leg from her battery explosion

This restaurant doesn't do subtle

But anyway, enough of the excuses and back to meaningless tales about my sad little existence.  Flying directly from the land of Anti-Christmas to an ocean of Ho Ho Hos, eggnog, lights, presents and Jingle Bells was a shock to the system.  In fact it was like taking a bit of pulverised Santa (his pinky toe or something unnecessary.....perhaps even his appendix....), mixing it with some tinsel, a snowflake and some liquefied gingerbread and injecting that yuletide hit straight through the chest plate directly into the heart - like that scene in Pulp Fiction when John Travolta smashes that shot of adrenaline into Uma Thurman's chest after she ODs on his heroin stash thinking it was coke and has a trail of blood coming out her nose.....let's face it, we've all been there......... - Basically we landed in full Christmas cheer right on Christmas Eve itself - in Vienna.  And my poor Jewish husband??? Basically forced to bring in Christmas in the country of Hitler's birth.  But to be fair, it was his idea.  Although he strays towards the nonchalant side of Christmas, he is in fact, a sucker for Christmas lights.

Mr Christmas Lights gets his fix

Pretty - but can we go home to bed now Chalksie???

We headed straight for the toy shop, where we had planned to let the girls mark out their special wishes for the big guy and secretly buy them when they weren't looking.  Unfortunately the shelves were fairly sparse, and my repeated attempts to guide them towards the vet outfits and the puzzles were stamped out with a heart shaped box of make-up and those stupid soft toys with the big eyes.  More unfortunately still, was that Cordi asked me at the age of 4 - "Mum is Santa actually real?"  I had braced myself for this question - anticipating it from about age 8, and decided that after my own parents repeated bullshit with accompanying feelings of betrayal, I was actually going to tell the truth when finally asked.  But at 4???  No, it's not fair.  So I copied some random Mum's response in some internet letter about how Santa, while not being actually one person represents the idea of magic that all parents carry on for their children and how magic is real to people that believe in it......blah blah blah.  She didn't buy it for a second.  Instead she just looked at me and said "Yes, but is Santa actually real Mummy?".  I skirted the issue and said "Do you believe in him?".  She said "Yes", so I said, "Then he is real......now get that carrot ready for Rudolf"....... let the Great Lie continue......

I guess that that's what happens when you send a couple of semi Christian kids to a kindergarten full of Jewish children and tell them that Santa will visit us in Austria.  The Jewish parents have got to tell their kids something.  Some magical fattie can't be favouring all the yoks and leaving the Jewish kids out of the present fiesta....like I previously said, the chocolate coins and jam donuts are no match for a sack of bounty.  At least I didn't have to explain away Krampus this year - there was no sign of the evil fuck in any shops.  I think he has his moment early December, and then is whisked away to leave minimal psychological scars......see last years Austrian Krampus explanation if this makes as much sense to you as quantum physics.....http://twintravelling.blogspot.co.il/2012/12/krampus-castle-and-pus-sticks_2.html

Hidey Ho

So cut to the Christmas Eve dinner -  a restaurant completely filled with cuckoo clocks (it was called Restaurant Der KuckKuck, so I guess it was appropriate).  It sounds great, but you don't count on the little pricks going off every two seconds all over the place.  We had a cuckoo clock as a child.  It was never on the wall, as it never worked.  I suspect it was because me and my brother were constantly trying to open those little wooden doors to catch a glimpse of the little white elusive bastard....praying, just praying it would cuckoo for us.  Never did, the little shit.  So, as Cordi got creative with her own Mr Hanky, we all walked around in the freezing cold, marvelling at the lights of Vienna, and then back to our glamorous room - which might I add was free due to an usual amount of Starwood points my husband happened to rack up.  Seeing as we'd had to leave our Tel Aviv apartment at 3am to make our flight that morning I really expected the girls to nap on a bit longer that 4.45am the next morning.  F U C K.  But I guess I did it to my own parents, and them to theirs, and so on..... every Christmas morning.  Its hard to go back to sleep with a pillow case of loot winking at you from the bottom of the bed.  So Christmas morning off we went with two four year olds completely plastered in toy make-up (hopefully non toxic, but unfortunately I can't read German), and received daggers from all the staff suckered into working Christmas morning in the restaurant.  It wouldn't have mattered if I'd passed out Rolex's and diamond earrings, they would have still despised us.  I punished them for their weakly veiled hatred by not leaving a tip.....on Christmas.  That is some evil shit right there......

I asked the girls to spell a word with the available sticker letters at dinner - I must say, I'm impressed

Ohhhhhhh Santa!!!  You do love me - Mum's threats were bullshit

Santa BABY!!!!!  You love ME more

This one's been done to death

Then it was off to the Christmas markets at the Schönbrunn Palace to meet Chalky's niece and boyfriend who by total coincidence happened to be in Vienna for 2 days.  We all indulged in some festive bullshit (i.e. looked at some Christmas decoration stalls) and ate some Nutella waffles.  Saw some ducks performing a Christmas miracle, took some photos, and shoved off back to the hotel via a few hot chocolates where I almost lived my dream.

Yeah Baby

Give me more

Oh dear.......

The miracle ducks - I'm talking about the dudes at the back not the loser at the front

Photos never do it justice, but take it from me....it was magic

This dream involved seeing the Nutcracker Ballet inside the Vienna State Opera House on Christmas night.  The slight drawback was that it was completely sold out, and if, by chance, seats became available, they were extremely expensive.  BUT......the lounge room windows of our swanky joint opened directly onto the front of the Opera House where a giant 8 by 10 metre screen had been erected.  And what was on the screen but........ National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - The Uncut Version!!!!!......OK, so it was really The Nutcracker, with all it's orchestra glory.  They had put up seats directly in front in the square, but we had the best view in the house - plus we had heaters under the windowsills which made a difference with the windows open - Ha Ha Ha everyone else freezing below.  We sat and drank French champagne and watched the entire show.  I was literally so happy that I shed joyous tears - especially during the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy herself.  I had always dreamt of a life on the stage (in a tutu) until Mrs Todd broke it to me at age 12 that I was never going anywhere outside the St Stevens Community Hall.....thanks bitch - you could have mentioned that before I made my Mother spend 200 bucks on point shoes that I had Buckley's of standing on......gutted.  Nowadays my only chance of being on the stage is cleaning it at the end of the night.  Who cares, I'll take it.......

It's all about the spread

But it was Auf Wiedersehen not long after that......NYE came on quick - it's a relative non event here - the Jewish New Year being in September.  So NYE here is called Sylvester, and a few restaurants make a lame effort - balloons, a count down that half of the people don't realise is happening.  I tried to get drunk and failed epically.  Went back to Chalk's nieces place via cafe on the corner who's coffee I enjoy by day.  However, this evening they had erected a stripper pole near the coffee machine and I lamely watched from the stairs, as a pale chick in sparkly undies, slid down a pole upside down and showed everyone her fanny......no pubes.....she hasn't caught on yet.........We chewed the fat a bit more back at the birthday girl's place, and ate cake that I had made for Sunny's birthday - yes, it's on the 31st - bad deal huh......it was chocolate and beetroot.  Tasted like dirt.

Flavors from the ground......

The beginning of January flittered away fast, and here I am at 40 wondering what the fuck happened.  I'm sure it's a common feeling.  I will attempt to address this milestone in the not to distant future after I sober up and the anti-Ds kick in.  Suffice to say, that I am reasonably impressed with the birthday wishes from one and all....but next time you better say it with presents or I'm defriending you all.....the fact that I'm on the other side of the world should not be a deterrent.