Summertime Sweetess

Promises so much, delivers so little

I'm not sure if I try and create some kind of intense situation for myself right before I flee Israel (or Australia)  sometime in June, July or August; or whether it accidentally happens.  Last year the very day before we left I threw a birthday party for the girls at a large inside centre, right smack bang during the Gay Pride Parade  This year, determined to have a less intense situation I threw their 6th Birthday inside our tiny apartment.  Not sure what my reasoning was there, but anyway......

This was super fun to play with

I love Birthdays.  My own especially.  In fact I only love my own.  Everybody else can go and shove it - with your abundance of gifts, and happy glow.  But now my children's birthday also makes the cut.  I bask in their joy, get to play with their shit, and manage also to scrounge up a bit of attention - at least for the cake if nothing else.  So as I said, my plan this year was to have a girls party at our apartment.  I just didn't really think it through I guess.  I was trying to be as lazy as possible (as in not leave the house) and it totally backfired.  In Israel it's typically an extravaganza every single birthday - there are themes and indoor centres and entertainers with headsets and fire twirlers, and pop corn carts and fairy floss stations.  The girls just went to an insane affair in the park with knights and some dude dressed up as a dragon. Apparently he was so realistic that he basically made all the kids shit their pants in fear.

Honey Joys - you suck

  

Next year.....next year

I just didn't really feel like tolerating a guy with a headset making animals out of balloons this year ( the poodle - it's always the poodle, get another animal in your repertoire buddy), or carting plates of party crap and streamers somewhere in 72% humidity.  Thus I decided a good old Aussie style was on my cards.  You know what I mean - just games and nostalgic party food at home - like the old days - before themes and bought 'Octonaut' cakes.  Only I couldn't be bothered to do chocolate crackles, cocktail savs, or those cornflake crackle things with honey - what were they called?? Ah yes, bloody Honey Joys!! - hated them actually.  Didn't do lamingtons, mini sausage rolls or meat pies, nor did I do those jelly in an orangeskin things.  Basically it was less about the nostalgic food items if I really come to think about it.  My Mum was so into making party food - I remember just before any of our parties, Mum had Dad working his way through a dozen oranges the day before, so she could pour the jelly in the empty peels and serve them up in the backyard.  She made all the requisite party items of course, and sometimes she would stay up all night making caramel fudge too.  All I managed to do was fairy bread - only it was wasn't how I remembered it - Disgusting really - has anyone ever tried it lately? I think the bread could have been stale for a start.  Regardless, that combination of over processed carbs, butter and E numbers is much better in Australia.  I 'spose I could have jazzed it up by cutting the fairy bread into hearts with cookie cutters - but no one likes a spoilt brat.  What I did whip up though was about 24 different coloured rainbow cupcakes.  I'm getting carried away in a bad direction with the special food dyes I bought from the party shop to make my special rainbow layer cake the week before.  I'm pretty sure they're pure poison - but they look sooooooo pwetty!  The morning after the girl's party I got up and and ate 2 of the leftover cupcakes.  First thing in the morning.  Fuck the lemon in hot water and a piece of fruit, I am slamming it with a lavender, and then with a peach coloured mini cake.  I think the third one I had that day, I just licked the lime green buttercream icing off.  That is some feral shit - it's like I dare myself to get close to the edge of self destruction before I save it all over a 6 week detox fitness trip to the tropics and redeem myself completely.  I don't have a full length mirror, so sometimes it creeps up on me as well.  Things had been going downhill long before then though, I'd already eaten 2kg of the previously mentioned rainbow cake the week before - pooing the full spectrum of the rainbow for a couple of days.....sorry.....I don't know why I would put that out there.

The greatest party food known to man

Pink Princessy Party 

Cosy

Bad Kitty

The elevator broke 15 minutes before the party started - and seeing as my husband was child escorting duty, he had to make 10 trips up 12 flights of stairs in the first 10 minutes.  It was really hot too and he was sweating everywhere.  So it kind of started on a low point for him.  For me too - the wind was up big time, so as soon as I set the paper plates and cups on the party table on the balcony, they were immediately whipped away to the neighbours roof.   Luckily I had my husband as my slave in child control and home maintenance, including packing down and moving out the giant tea party table that I'd had to shift inside (it sure was squashy in the lounge room).  He also helped me when I had a stress breakdown, because I couldn't work the Disney soundtrack.  I should have really considered the impact that sugar charging 12 six year old girls before the party games kicked off would have......That shit got ugly - it's amazing how far some kids are willing to go to win a pack of Frozen stickers.  I mean, nobody likes to get 'out' in Musical Statues, but put it into perspective Squirts, it's not like you lost a parent or anything.  I was frazzled long before the piñata came out - which was a shame really because it was the highlight.  For me anyway.  As I've said before I am piñata obsessed - The first time I saw one was on Sesame Street when some Mexican kids bashed the shit out of one that looked like a giant multi-coloured donkey.  It then exploded and covered the crowd in confetti and 5 tons of bonbons.  I thought it was the greatest sight ever known to man.   Since that moment I always dreamt of having a piñata at my party.  Of course it never eventuated - Tasmania doesn't seem to be known for it's array of piñatas - I'm sure you can get one now, but as a kid we didn't have that stuff - and we only had 2 channels on the TV as well.  It was like avocados and coriander - you just didn't get that shit in Tassie back then.

Ever tried to halve an avocado with this cray cray result??  Exciting stuff...

Anyway - I tried to make my own once - out of balloons and paper mache - only it got mauled by the next door neighbour's dog when it was sitting out in the sun drying.  So, when I saw about 25 piñatas in the local "Super Party" shop a couple of weeks ago, I was all over that jizz. After the mermaid I had my eye on sadly got sold, I settled for Japan's favourite feline.  I had to fill her myself, so I poured a kilogram of glitter confetti in, plus some chocolate hearts, some flashing crappy rings from china, Disney princess lip balm, unicorn tattoos and some bonbons.  Let's just say that those things never break at the hands of a child.  And there were some close calls with the stick swinging as well - it was a miracle that someone didn't get knocked unconscious.  I couldn't even smash that bad boy open.  It was up to my husband to bash the crap out of it, and finally he hit gold - cracking Hello Kitty apart, as she dumped the motherload on everyone's head.  The chocolate was all nice and melty too, and all the kids had heart and crown-shaped glitter stuck to their skin.  I tipped all the rest all over them for good measure.   Then they were all scrambling around on the ground fighting over the prizes and whinging to me.  It's bad enough with two, let alone 12.  It tipped me over the edge after the party game brawls, so I went and hid in the toilet and made another kid's mother cut the icecream cake.  Finally it was all over.  The relief was palatable, and the floor was sticky.

First came the scrambling, then the brawling

Scorpions - Tassie, really????

Not content to have my apartment destroyed by a dozen mini people with loud voices and a tendency to squeal (the squealing was loud, really loud), I decided to create a special way to put myself under pressure - I decided to rent our apartment out on Air BnB, which to me was a much much better plan than teaching Business English for 44 weeks, and yielded the same financial result.  The process however, was completely time consuming and no fun (20 hours of putting away and cleaning every single thing) - but the end result (our first tenants) is aces.  It's how to cover your holiday costs everyone - so get on!  I'm an Air BnB believer....But before that could happen I had to exterminate the resident cockroaches that distress and disgust me on a nightly basis, and could alarm a few paying guests.  They were big ones too - not those pissy little bush ones - I'm talking Sydney sized kitchen cockroaches.   Their days were already numbered, however when one crawled on my arm in bed one night, that was it.  I was already terrified after my husbands nephew told us that about 10 years ago he woke up with a large cockroach in his mouth - the tentacles sticking through his lips.  That is some fucked up shit.  My friend in Byron Bay also recently told me that she's had a few in her mouth who gained entry via her morning cup of coffee.  I was taking no chances.  Although I've never had a cockroach in my mouth, I didn't want that experience.  Just grossing out over bugs and how you really don't want them in certain places on (or in) your body, 3 disturbing,   and some what related incidents spring to mind.  The first was when I put my jeans on one Tasmanian morning about 15 years ago and felt something biting my fanny flap.  It was really painful, and so not where you want to feel pain.  As the belt buckle was a bit touchy, I couldn't get my jeans off, thus I went into an hysterical attack of fear, and was forced to crush the unknown wiggling biting lump to death through my jeans.  I finally got my jeans off and was traumatised to discover it was a scorpion.  At least the Tasmanian variety aren't poisonous - but still, a scorpion on your fanny is unacceptable  At all times. The second incident was a blood filled leech in exactly the same place when I was tripping on mushrooms in the Minyon Falls forest in 1993.  I killed it in exactly the same way and blood exploded in my hand.  Disturbing. 

Shoo from my shoe

The third unpleasant happening was when I discovered a 15cm centipede inside a trainer I had been wearing for 20 minutes while at breakfast in my hotel in Thailand last year.  I was chowing down on some mango, when I felt something twitch in my shoe and took it off to find a giant pale coloured centipede with yellow legs.  According to the staff who chased it from the restaurant with brooms, that particular one was poisonous - but luckily it didn't choose to bite me, as it didn't seem particularly affected by half an hour between my sock and my shoe with 60kg of my body weight on top on it - it seemed fighting fit actually.  So in memory of all the shit times involving bugs and my wellbeing, it was with murder in my heart that I rang Yehiel The Destroyer.  And let me tell you you I wish I could ring him a bit more - he was seriously handsome.  Who knew the extermination industry attracted babes?  The name too - it's impressive.   I would just introduce myself like that always. Or go with something like "Hi, nice to meet you - I'm Emily, Bringer Of Doom".    So, within a couple of hours, the majority of cockroaches and silverfish were apparently dead, Yehiel The Destroyer gave me his business card, a guarantee note for a year, flashed a smile and sped off in his van.  I must admit I expected to see more that what seemed to be dying on various floors in our house. But there were enough to terrify the girls.  I'd be sitting there minding my business and suddenly a blood curdling scream would rip through the house because one of them saw a dead cockie lying on it's back twitching.  I'm so glad I got that done.  Every time we go away when we get back the house seems extra roachy.  They are hardy bastards - they can go a month without eating, survive 35 minutes without air and make it through 30 mins submerged under water, and they really are radiation resistant.   And apparently they also have personalities (I just discovered all this while looking for a picture, and now I feel all guilty).  Well they're all pushing up daisies now so I guess I won't be getting to know my former twitchy little housemates in a meet and greet session.

You little fucker - you actually look happy here

So God knows how I got it all done - but I did - and leaving felt so sweet.  Tel Aviv to London to Barbados to Bequia.  One day, and one night of travel - it takes it out of you.  I love my life in Tel Aviv, I really do - but living there is like a full on assault on the senses.  I guess it's hard to achieve true peace and relaxation when you live smack bang inside a busy noisy dirty city.  It seems like a long way to go, and a pain in the arse to get to this teeny island in the far east Caribbean Sea, but it's not until you arrive and the dust settles that you remember again what it's like to have space and silence.  It's priceless.

So long for now Tel Aviv