Adelaide had the kind of husband who was giving her bunches of tulips one day, then casting nasturtiums on her housekeeping skills the next.
and in news just to hand…
Like John Howard, Adelaide is completely reassured by the Chinese premier’s statement that the uranium China buys from Australia – indeed, South Australia – will be used only for perfectly peaceful purposes in perfectly safe facilities. As uranium always is.
And even as you read, Adelaide is sitting on a plane to New York with her children, hoping they can be included in the asthma vaccine trials and be given daily doses of dust mites and cat fur.
dear dad
Dear Dad
Isn’t it funny that being a Sturt supporter for all those years has stood me in such good stead for following the Power from Port?
Love, Adelaide
PS Pass the message on to my brother too.
please explain the uranium mines
Adelaide was the kind of vegetarian who wore leather shoes and snuck pieces of Christmas ham.
She was the kind of person who knew about carbon credits, but washed her dishes in a machine.
She was the kind of partner who didn’t want to know that her beloved clipped his toenails, but didn’t care where she clipped her own.
She was the kind of anti-poverty campaigner who paid sixty dollars to get her hair cut and another sixty to get it dyed.
She was the kind of feminist who vacuumed before her mother-in-law arrived.
And still she failed to see how Mike Rann could be fighting tooth and nail against a radioactive waste dump one year and championing the expansion – the doubling – of uranium mining the next.
the sticky black drink (I think we all know what that means)
‘When your little boy is given a fast-food voucher by football players visiting his school, you’ve got talkback radio programmes you can ring,’ Adelaide said then sniffed. She twisted the ring on her finger around and around again.
‘But when you take your children to perform a song at a cultural event and the manufacturers of the sticky black drink thrust a can of sticky black drink in their hands after the children come off the stage…’ Adelaide took a breath, sniffed, cleared her throat, then spoke. ‘There’s nowhere you can go.’
The mothers, fathers, grandmothers and carers Adelaide was addressing nodded their heads.
The children thrust their cans at their mothers, fathers, grandmothers and carers and said can you open this then took their first sips of the sticky black drink as their mothers, fathers, grandmothers and carers looked on.
‘Life,’ Adelaide said, ‘is a decaying slope.’
the places jealousy takes people
Adelaide carried the cup of tea to her husband. She had put one and a tiny bit spoons of sugar and topped it up with a cold water splash. Just the way he liked.
‘Thanks love,’ he said. He did not look away from the TV. She put the plate with his cheese and biscuit on the table next to the lounge, then took a seat.
‘You know I just love that Tony Jones,’ Adelaide said. ‘I think he’s gorgeous. I’d marry him.’
Adelaide’s husband blew on his tea, then took a slurp.
‘Even though he wears a wig?’ he asked.
the second list
After installing her new desk (which would inspire creativity and greatly improve efficiency) and cleaning her study for three days, Adelaide still could not find a home for:
1. Three pairs of old glasses, one in a good and robust case. All unscratched, but unflattering
2. Large box of rubber bands
3. Anne Geddes gift bag – really not Adelaide’s cup of tea, but still in very good condition
4. Coaster…ooh, that fits just nicely next to computer
5. UniSA photocopy access card from brief encounter as an academic several years ago
6. Cassette of INXS: the swing, still in its original case
7. One child’s sock
8. Two bookmarks from Griffith Review Making Perfect Bodies edition
9. One lipstick best described as off-coffee. Unmelted
10. One 45c Christmas stamp
11. One large bent paperclip, one large unbent paperclip
12. Child’s coathanger
13. Small rusty photoframe
14. Ticket for London buses
15. Several copies of two different types of business cards
16. Two wooden dolly pegs
17. One packet of very, very small rubberbands
18. Assorted rubber bands likely to break the next time they are used
19. Four hair bands
20. Various coins from far-off shores
21. Roll of cheap, thin sticky tape
22. Two snowmen from the carriage of a Swiss-made Christmas train which was carried all the way back to Australia by a loving Granny
23. Hungry Hippos marble
24. Backup disk of a much-loved, but going nowhere, long piece of fiction
25. Adelaide(confidential) contact details ripped from the pages of The Advertiser
26. Two written, addressed, stamped and unsent Christmas cards
27. Line up of the usual suspects of badges (it’s timor’s oil; peace in the world begins at home; vote 1 greeens etc etc etc)
28. Photo of The Mister one sunset at Death Valley
29. Frequent flyer points card
30. Decaying plastic peg (faded blue)
31. One cassette of Chinese pop star bought twenty years ago on first overseas trip
32. Business card of one old friend Adelaide had bumped into at the market one day and who had said we must catch up soon with such confidence Adelaide had thought perhaps they might
the first list
Things in Adelaide’s life which have not delivered on their promise:
1. Tea towel holder: there’s more to life than looking good
2. MP3 player
3. As many tertiary qualifications as you can count on one hand (excluding the thumb). Could it be time to make a decision?
4. Microfibre cleaning cloths: constructed from the latest technology to be used with nothing more chemical than water and bought at no small expense – as Adelaide’s friend had advised ‘someone still needs to flap them around the place’
5. Belize: a zillion tourists a year love it, one or two do not
6. Any number of organisational things bought from seductive stationery stores
7. Anti-cellulite cream, anti-ageing cream, fat reduced cream
8. Our ABBC: just because it’s studded with English accents doesn’t make it high quality
10. Quantum physics for dummies: whether that book has been published or not is irrelevant
grandmother’s advice
Adelaide had never regretted that she did not follow her grandmother’s advice to marry a man with money.
But she sometimes wondered whether a grown man should spend quite that much money on milk rock.
one small step
Adelaide had just worked out what she was doing wrong on bloglines, and it was quite obvious once you realised. In actual fact, it wasn’t that hard.
That meant that she could now check for blog updates using bloglines.
Which meant that she would no longer be opening all her carefully bookmarked favourites using the exceptionally useful separate tabs facility in firefox several times a day.
Which, for her, meant that blogging was going to be more efficient and less time consuming.
And which, for everyone else, meant a decline in site statistics.