Today Susie and I went op-shopping in an attempt to restock my diminished craft supplies from the markets, and I happened upon what appeared to be a very cool old beauty case in good nick. Upon further inspection, my opinion changed from very cool to unbelievably freaking awesome. Inside the case is an old Sunbeam hair-dryer, complete with rollers and little hair cap that the dryer plugs into. I enquired about the price of said item, and once I heard that it was going for a whopping $5, I tried not to wet myself, controlled my hyperventilating, and told the nice lady behind the counter that I believed I would be buying it.
When I got home I plugged it in for shits and giggles, half expecting it not to work. But of course – it’s perfect. It works like a beauty. I plan to be eventually sending this along to my darling mother to add to her eclectic collection of vintage and collectable goodies. My Mum collects pretty much everything, so it’s easy to pick up little bits and pieces for her on my little shopping ventures.
This blog post was inevitable at some point – I want to wax lyrical about my Mum. Everybody who knows me knows that I’m massively a Mummy’s girl, a fact which I am quite happy to admit. And the reason for this is quite simple – she’s the bombski.
My Mum, among other things, is strong, smart, beautiful, protective of her kids, a good cook, and funny as hell. She’s always willing to listen, will laugh with you, cry with you, and will offer to take out a contract on anybody who hurts you. There’s still one guy I knew who will not be lucky if he crosses paths with her. Which I totally dig. My Mum may come across as softly spoken and kind of timid, but she’s got fire in her belly, and occasionally lets a swear word slip (which delights me no end). She talks to our pets, thinks that it makes perfect sense to collect old knitting needles, debates the pronunciation of the word “segue”, and likes to do a bit of crafting. She’s even picked up on some of the Gen Y lingo, and refers to people as tools.
She’s also very reliable. I know that I can rely on her in times of need. Like the time that I was studying full-time, and working part-time, and came down with the flu. She came over to my place with a food care package containing curried lentils, veggies, and all of my favourites. She even included some pastries for dessert.
I can rely on her to laugh – even at traumatic experiences, when the only thing you CAN do is laugh. Last year I went on a particularly horrific date with a professional snake handler (that’s actually not a euphemism). The date started off with Thai food, moved onto catching a brown snake in the bush (which was then captured in a hessian bag and sat behind my seat in the car), and ended with trying to find frogs in the dark, in another part of the bush. I was wearing thongs and a skirt, and not exactly well-attired for the whole intrepid explorer thing. Needless to say, it was not love at first sight (it was more like “Holy f*** that SNAKE’SBITINGYOURF******LEG!!!”). However, I knew that if nothing else it was a great story (rivaled only by the date that took me to a graveyard) and that my Mum would see the humour in it. She did. Most other people were absolutely horrified, looked at me strangely, then walked away. Mum, on other hand, had a good belly laugh with me.
Moving has been hard for me with not being able to see my Mum. I miss our debriefings over coffee, showing off our latest op shop finds, and just being my mother’s daughter. We still catch up over the telephone every few days though, and there have been a few care packages sent between us. I like to think that one day she’ll move down here too, and we’ll wrought our own special kind of Mackey havoc on Tassie. But even if she doesn’t, she is still the bee’s knees, the cat’s meow, in my eyes an absolute rock star, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
