Author Archives: deepkickgirl

The hardest part

Posted in Marriage, Saddness, Separation, Thoughts by

images

Because every day is getting a little easier I wanted to take a moment to note what has probably been the hardest part of this process of loss and grief. It’s what I’m calling the “phantom limb phenomenon”.

You know when people have a limb amputated they often complain of still needing to scratch an itch on the missing body part. Well I am experiencing a similar issue. My brain knows that the husband formerly known as Big Jay (McNulty for future reference – for those who know The Wire) is no longer there, both physically and mentally. I know this fact because a part of my brain keeps an almost constant monologue going on this topic, despite my best intentions.

Knowing that he’s gone doesn’t stop me forgetting. Numerous times each day something will occur which makes me remember that I’ve forgotten. I’ll be in the kitchen making school lunches when I’ll think of something that he needs to do and I’ll go to call out to him and think “Doh!”; or a school meeting pops up and I’ll automatically agree to attend before I realise that I no longer have a live-in childminder for such occasions.

I guess this is a very natural and understandable part of the process. When you’ve been with someone for so many years their presence becomes something similar to that of oxygen. Utterly important yet utterly invisble; totally taken for granted. Unlike oxygen I will not die without his presence. But like a newly missing limb my body and brain are learning every day to live without, to compensate, to adjust, to find ways to fill the holes. This is not as painful as it may sound, at least not for me. But it is certainly an adjustment period that I am very consciously living through right now.

Now you’re just somebody that I used to know

Posted in Family, Marriage, Optimism, Saddness, Separation, Thoughts by

It is really bloody hard to write those words about the man you have spent almost twenty one years of your life with; the man you saw as your life partner, the father of your children, the one with whom you have shared the ups and downs for as far back as you can remember and the one you had hoped you would share the future with.

If you’ve been wondering why Deep Kick Girl has been silent of late it’s because she’s been busy watching her marriage and, to some degree, her life shatter with absolutely no prior warning.

I don’t need to go into details, not because I am shy about publicly sharing the hard truths of my life but because for some reason I want to protect the dignity of the husband formerly known as Big Jay. I could probably argue that his dignity is not worth protecting but I know within myself that there is nothing to be gained from putting all the gory details out into the cyberworld for all eternity.

The bottom line is he has chosen to walk away from our marriage, our family and our future to chase a mirage. I have lost all my respect for the man I loved so dearly not so very long ago. It is a surreal feeling. I do not recognise him when I look at him and currently I am avoiding looking at him because the sense of loss and disbelief is overwhelming.

It’s been an emotional rollercoaster for the past five weeks but I have stepped off now and gradually things are coming back into focus. I no longer feel like I have been punched in the stomach every waking moment. I no longer have the words “how” and “why” and “no” doing a non-stop conga line around my brain. I am no longed wrecked with constant anxiety about how we will cope financially, about how the kids will cope with not having their father around every day and about how I will manage to put on the bloody huge king sized quilt cover without another set of helping hands.

My predominant emotions right now are indignant anger (the physical need to send text message along the lines of “you f*&king useless c^%t… how dare you do this to us you complete f@#king imbecile” is quite gut wrenching at times) and also a sense of hope and optimism. Every day I feel stronger, clearer, more confident and more excited about the future.

It is unbearably painful to realise that the man you thought was your life partner doesn’t love you any more and doesn’t even like you enough to treat you with some respect. But it is also incredibly empowering to know that you can and will survive. It is painfully wonderful to realise that you are surrounded by people who truly do love you and will support you and your children through thick and thin. It is this outpouring of love and kindness which has made me cry the hardest during these past weeks.

I have been down but I am certainly not out. The kids are doing well and they are really awesome little people who make me swallow any thoughts or words of the “I have wasted the last twenty years” variety.

There is now less than five weeks until I fly out to New York with my little posse of middle aged women gone mild. When this first went down the thought of this trip made me sick – how could I go and in any way enjoy this holiday when my life was in ruins? But now I feel crazy with excitement; my sister awaits, my besties by my side… how can I not look forward to what will be ten days of fun and great memories in the making?

There is a red hot coal of sadness inside me which will take a very long time to exhtinguish but it is now becoming insulated by layers of anger, optimism, hope, happiness, excitement and love. There is no underestimating how much of a healer time is, I am experiencing that magic every single day at the moment.

I will always choose to count my blessings and keep the events of my life in perspective and I will always choose to celebrate life rather than wallow in fear, anxiety or self pity. That is my revenge.

Motherhood Statements (revisited)

Posted in Government, Motherhood Statements, Politics by

I have previously written about motherhood statements and current events in politics have made me think about this concept again.

What’s a motherhood statement? Wiktionary defines it as such: “a “feel good” platitude, usually by a politician, about a worthy concept that few people would disagree…”.

When Julia Gillard begins a speech with “My fellow Straians…” you know you’re about to hear a truck load of motherhood statements. This is stuff about education being good, importance of families, strong economy… stuff you just can’t argue with really because it’s like saying the sky is blue or we need air to breath.

The current state of politics is dire in Australia right now, in the most dull sense of the word. Not dire like in Turkey or in Syria where it’s actually a matter of life and death and basic freedoms and human rights. But dire in the sense that everyone knows that we are in a very long pregnant pause right now. The result of the September election is all but cast in stone. All public announcements by the current federal government are treated with the contempt they so richly deserve. The opposition knows full well they just need to keep quiet and not have any of their higher profile members get caught in a compromising situation with a goat and/or a member of the Greens. There is no need to announce policies or make any grand statements  or even waste too much breath pointing out the faults of those currently driving the out of control road train known as the Australian Labor Party.

This week there has been a great deal of the poor excuse which passes for political media commentary and all centered on the people instead of the policies. This is what’s doing my head in. It’s always about the people and when it’s about policy it’s always just banal motherhood statements.

Let’s get back to the people angle. Generally when the conversation turns to this election it goes like this: “I won’t be voting for Julia Gillard but I can’t bring myself to vote for Abbott, argh [usually with a grimace at this point to illustrate how utterly distasteful Tony Abbott is]”. Usually I smile and nod knowingly but what I’m thinking is “grow the fuck up”. I am sick to death of this election being about Gillard vs Abbott. It’s about the policies of the Australian Labor Party versus the policies of the Australian Liberal Party, with the policies of the assorted and varied minor parties and independents throw in for colour and movement.

I have nothing against Julia Gillard. I am sure she is incredibly smart and dynamic and passionate and has lots of wonderful personal qualities which I will never know about because I am unlikely to ever meet her and share anything resembling a personal conversation. But I have a deep loathing for the policies she has implemented on behalf of her party which I strongly disagree with; starting with the highly offensive carbon tax, moving through the pink batts fiasco, the BER fiasco, the NBN fiasco and their inability to legalise gay marriage (the one thing I was hopeful a more small “l” liberal Labor Party might have the guts to bring in).

In my middle age I have become more and more conservative when it comes to the financial management of this country. I want a government which takes a reasonable amount of tax, spends it thoughtfully on important things and stays out of things which are none of their business.

I am fed up with the “misogyny” angle and the focus on budgie smugglers and red hair and menus at stupid dinners and whether the First Hairdresser is gay or not. Let’s all be mature adults here and talk about policy. Are you happy with the policies of the Labor Party? Do you think they’ve done a good job with the financial management of this country? That’s what this election should be about; not any of the other bullshit.

What we need to be asking is where do all the promises come from? I don’t know jack shit about the Gonski reforms. All I know is that everyone wants better schools (motherhood statement), better hospitals (motherhood statement), better roads (ditto), less tax (ditto). When any party promises any of these things we need to ask “where is the money coming from?”.  If these wonderful Gonski reforms come in (and I’m not arguing about their benefits to the school system) where is the sacrifice going to be made?

It’s all swings and roundabouts, slight of hand and taking from Peter to pay Paul in politics. If we think otherwise we are seriously kidding ourselves.

I’ll put it out there right now: I will be voting for the Liberal Party at the next election (and my goodness it can not come soon enough). Not because I like Tony better than Julia but because I want conservative fiscal governance of our country. That simple. Whoever wins, the difference in my life and in the lives of those nearest and dearest to me will be minimal.  But I am hopeful, though not totally optimistic, that the booby trapped carbon tax legislation will be repealed and that we can slowly regain the strong financial grounding Australia enjoyed prior to this Labor administration.

I will leave you with this motherhood statement. Free, democratic elections are a privilege many people around the world are willing to kill and die for. We don’t have to. But I dare to suggest we need to put on our big girl (and boy) undies and man up here (sorry to mix my clichés) and stop this playground nonsense about who we like or not. We will soon have the solemn duty to vote for our next government; let’s take this job seriously.

Where the heart is

Posted in Charity, Family, Kids Say The Darndest Things by

Illness has descended upon Casa DKG; an unidentified unwellness whereby the kidlets and I have various symptoms including headache, body aches, upset tummies and general crankiness. You might ask how is this any different to a normal day around these here parts. Being the mother I have years of experience in discerning where normal grumpiness and poor behaviour ends and actual sickness begins. We are officially in that zone.

I am fairly confident this is the sort of 24 hour thing which will be made all better by a day in front of the tv with plentiful cups of lemony tea and paracetamol* [*willing to promote your brand of paracetamol here, just phone the 1800 number, our trained operators are waiting to take your call]. Oh and a win by the hapless NSW Blues in tonight’s State of Origin wouldn’t hurt at all.

Being safe and snug at home prompted Miss M to consider the plight of homeless people. “It would be horrible to be homeless when you are sick,” she stated. I agreed.

“If I saw a homeless person that was sick I would ask them to come and live with us and look after them. Then, when they got their own place I would be their friend.”

Oh!

Such beautiful sentiments bring about so many questions.

Who is this kind child and what has she done with my daughter?
If she feels so much empathy towards homeless people why can’t she display some towards her long suffering mother?
Would she be nicer to me if I was homeless?
Does she realise that homeless people generally smell bad?

It makes me so happy that she feels this way but also sad because I know that life is not so simple and very soon she will come to understand this.

I wanted to explain to her that people become homeless for a complex variety of reasons. I wanted to explain to her that it would be a much better world if we could all take in a homeless person into our homes and help them regain their footing in society… but that unfortunately the world just didn’t work that way.

Why doesn’t it work this way? I don’t know. Fear would be my first guess. Money. Control. Stepping outside of our comfort zones.

We start off fearless and open and slowly get filled up with fear because the more we know the more fearful we become. We start off full of possibility and naively brave about the world and soon we become risk assessment specialists, assessing every action and interaction against an ever building mental list of what ifs.

I know we can’t take a homeless person home but I know we can help our children understand that it is important to help those less fortunate in the world (as our family does) and that there are many ways of doing that. For example, it is often said that charity starts are home… so how about starting by being charitable to your parents? We may not be homeless but we deserve a little kindness and empathy too.

Discuss.

Faster Pasta #1: The One With The Smoked Salmon Tomato Cream Sauce

Posted in Cooking, Recipe, Uncategorized by

Whenever I am cooking pasta, as I was last night, I ponder why people who say they can’t cook don’t embrace pasta. I know these days it is possible to eat quite well and at reasonable cost without ever entering your kitchen. Fast, cheap food is no longer just the domain of Maccas and the Colonel; so many options are now freely available.

I suspect if I was single and kidlet free I would do little, if any, cooking. For me cooking and eating is pleasurable as a social and nurturing activity and these days it’s part of the fabric of my life and of how I view my own identity. But I can remember how the other side of the coin looks.

Getting back to last night… as I was cooking I was thinking that pasta is virtually indistructible and can be used as a base for just about anything you have lurking in your pantry and fridge. A 99 cent packet of pasta plus 3 or 4 other ingredients can make a meal; once you get your head around the basic flavour principles you are away. A family of four or five can eat for under $10 easily; or a single person make enough for four work lunches for the same cost.

The good thing is, while your pot of pasta is boiling you can gather and prepare your other ingredients, drain the pasta and throw together as quickly as your chosen ingredients will allow.

A drizzle of olive oil, some gently fried garlic, a handful of sliced mushrooms and ham or bacon. Tomatoes going soft in the fridge? Peel and chop, soften in the pot with oil, onion and garlic, some fresh or dried herbs. Finish with some crumbled feta or ricotta or a splash of cream and some parmesan. Go a little fancier with some sliced chicken thigh fillets or green prawns, some grated zucchini, a little chili and some olive oil or cream to finish off.

From the simplest bowl of freshly cooked pasta with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of parmesan (as my kids love it) to a dinner party dish of home made pasta (try it, if you have a gadget to help with the kneading it’s easier than you would think, and very satisfying) with a delicately constructed sauce… pasta is something everyone should know how to make and experiment with.

Last night’s half hour wonder was:

023

Pasta with Smoked Salmon Tomato Cream Sauce

Ingredients
500g dried pasta shapes or spaghetti
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced or crushed
1 small onion, finely sliced or chopped
olive oil
1 teaspoon vegetable stock powder (chicken would be fine)
dried herbs (as available or to taste, or use fresh parsley, thyme… whatever you have/like)
8 small or 4 large tomatoes (I used Roma tomatoes because that’s what I had), peeled, chopped chunky style
Large handful of baby spinach leaves, torn or sliced
200 ml cream
8 slices smoked salmon, chopped as you like
Salt, pepper, chili (if you like) – all optional and all to taste
2-3 Tablespoons of parmesan, grated or shaved

Method
1) Cook pasta as instructed, drain, set aside.
2) In the same pot heat olive oil on low heat, add onion and garlic. Cook for a 3-5 minutes until starting to soften.
3) Add tomatoe pieces and a splash of water or white wine and your herbs and stock powder. Cook on low heat, stirring regularly.
4) When tomatoes are breaking down (up to you how chunky or mushy you like them) add the cream and baby spinach and stir through for one minute or so.
5) Add pasta and smoked salmon slices and seasoning (if using) and heat through while stirring. Turn off heat straight away, you want the salmon warm but not cooked and mushy.
6) Stir through parmesan or add to individual plates (I stir through).

Seriously quick and easy (and Marianna had three serves).

The important thing to remember is don’t worry too much about the recipe. Don’t like smoked salmon? Leave it out or add ham or some leftover chicken instead. Don’t have fresh tomatoes? Throw in a can of them. Add frozen peas or zucchini instead of spinach. Go hard on the chili if kidlets are not partaking. Use your imagination and let your vegie crisper dictate what goes in. The best thing about a pasta dish like this is nothing is really “wrong” – unless it tastes bloody awful of course, then it’s your own silly fault. Go back to the drawing board.

Fallacy of fantasy

Posted in Uncategorized by

Let’s take a sharp turn away from muffins and onto another topic I find fascinating. Fantasy. I have touched on this issue previously but now I’m going to get a bit adult about it.

I want to take a moment to talk about bedroom fantasy. Are you with me? Can you handle the truth? If not, look away now.

I am really interested in how people manage to play out their fantasies with other people. I am going to assume most other people have fantasies of a sexual nature; whether it’s your hubby doing the dishes in nothing but a frilly apron or you doing [insert celeb of choice here] in nothing but a pair of cowboy boots. These are fantasies which play out inside your head when you’re doing the old horizontal folk dancing, thinking about doing it or are just on your own enjoying a little DYI.

My problem is with people who are able to transform their fantasy into reality by getting their partner to act things out. It’s just that I find it hard enough to translate my desires to my partner on any given day. Normal household tasks never get done the way I like, so taking that scenario into the bedroom generally results in disappointment… or so I assume.

You see the ideal sexual partner would need to be totally telepathic for me to be truly happy. By the time you manage to say “more, to the left, faster” and they manage to grunt “what?” and you manage to squeak “forget it!” the moment is long gone and you may as well be loading the dishwasher.

If your partner is not telepathic how do people manage to have fulfilling sexual lives where they bring their fantasies to reality? If you like dressing up or enacting different scenarios how do you explain that to your partner and have them act it out in the way you find satisfying? I just can’t imagine it.

In my mind it would play out like the set of a Francis Ford Coppola movie: “stand here, walk to there, say this… no, no, let’s try it again”. That does not scream sexual excitement to me. Either we would be laughing hysterically or it would come to fisticufs.

So I like to let fantasy stay in my head. It’s the best place for it. In my head people do what I say, when I say it. In fact there is no need for nasty old conversation at all… luckily everyone is telepathic in my fantasies and know where to stand and when to put what where. Except sometimes, even in my fantasies, my own brain conspires against me and throws in stupid thoughts mid-good part (that toilet isn’t going to scrub itself, don’t forget the athletics carnival note tomorrow, did you remember to set up the PlayStation to tape The Voice for next Monday)… what a killjoy.

Is it just me? Am I the weird one? Do other people manage to happily enact their lewd fantasy scenarios with their partners without anyone getting hurt? I’m not being all pervy, I’m being genuinely anthropoligcally curious. Help a deepkickgirl out here.

I bake, therefore I am #1: Apple Crumble Muffins

Posted in Uncategorized by

009

It’s funny that I have become somewhat known for my baking – certainly for the quantity, if not the quality – since I used to be a bake-a-phobic in the not-too-distant past. Looking back I actually wonder if it isn’t this particular recipe (or at least the first incarnation of it I found many years ago) which kick started my baking career. These days there’s not too many days which go by without me bringing a batch of muffins or choc chip cookies or some other baked goodies to the office or sending some to Big Jay’s office after packing some for the kidlets to take to school for recess.

Of course the aforementioned kidlets would much rather take an LCM bar or a packet of broken glass for recess than anything their mother lovingly bakes for them… but that’s another story and best left for the psychiatrist’s office.

Today I am going to share a new variation on my versatile “Anything Goes” Muffin, a muffin I’m calling:

Apple Crumble Muffin (patent pending, all rights reserved)

Ingredients
1 egg
1/2 cup olive oil (or sunflower oil/rice bran oil/any oil you like that’s not very strong in flavour)
1 cup light sour cream (or not light sour cream/Greek youghurt/other youghurt/buttermilk/vanilla custard/something wet and thick)
1/2 cup maple syrup (don’t substitute with maple flavoured syrup because that’s just wrong and possibly against the Geneva Convention)

1 apples (any type), peeled, cored, diced small
1 3/4 cups self raising flour
1/2 cup sugar, white or raw
1-2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 Tablespoons rolled oats
1-2 Tablespoons pecans, chopped (or walnuts/almonds/macadamias and/or coconut – whatever rocks your boat)

Method
1) Pre-heat oven to 190C. If your oven runs hot you may need to reduce to 180C.
2) Prepare crumble mixture: in a small bowl mix brown sugar, oats and nuts.
3) Place paper muffin cases in a regular sized muffin tin (12 muffins). I like to spray lightly with spray oil to ensure no nasty sticking occurs.
4) Whisk first FOUR ingredients in a large bowl with a fork until well combined and smooth.
5) Add chopped apple and stir through.
6) Sift flour, sugar and cinnamon onto the wet mixture and stir through until just combined.
7) Divide mixture into the muffin cases (I like to use an old fashioned ice cream scoop to ensure even distribution).
8) Sprinkle the crumble mixture evenly all over the top of each muffin and gently press into the batter with the spoon or fingers – gently, don’t sink the mixture into the batter.
9) Bake for 20 minutes. Check the muffins. They need to have risen and be firm on top. You want the crumble topping to be a little caramalised and the brown sugar to be melting. If that’s not happening you want to leave in the oven for another five minutes or turn on your grill and carefully grill the top of the muffins for a couple of minutes to achieve a nice result. I’m a little anal about the crumble looking nice on top (note to self: probably shouldn’t be using the word anal in a recipe).

If you love the Apple-y, Cinnamon-y, Nutty, Oat-y goodness of an Apple Crumble you will love these. And by using oats you can kid yourself, like I do, that you are doing something good for your heart health and cholesterol levels. No, don’t thank me.

Enjoy.

[Instant Rewind #2] New York countdown is on

Posted in Uncategorized by

Today marks three months until I head off for the much anticipated Middle-Aged Women Gone (Not So) Wild in NYC trip. New York City with my sister and some of my very best besties. Heaven? Very close to it.

Yesterday I finally purchased tickets to The Book of Mormon on Broadway which was a very exciting moment. I’ve been looking forward to seeing this production since our last visit to NYC in 2011. We are also hoping to see Once while we’re there because I’m owed an extra Broadway show after seeing a grand total of none last time we were there.

This trip has been in the planning/dreaming stage for a very long time and it’s hard to believe it will be upon us so soon. In the meantime Big Jay leaves for his Middle-Aged Men Gone Batshit Crazy trip to Las Vegas next week, so I do have 10 days of solo parenting to get through (an experience which I find is getting easier and easier as the kidlets get older and more self-sufficient).

Here is a little rewind to May 2011 when we set off on our first trip to NYC. Enjoy.

[Instant Rewind #1]

Posted in Uncategorized by

I’ve just transferred the previous incarnation of DeepKickGirl – The Adventures of Deep Kick Girl Down Under – onto WordPress and to celebrate I will be revisiting some of my old posts for those who didn’t suffer through them the first time around. There are 877 posts to sift through if you have a really large cup of coffee to get through.

No, don’t thank me.

Hard to believe our last visit to New York was almost two years ago. This was 26 May 2011.

Oh! MONA

Posted in Uncategorized by

No I’m not going to spout lyrical about best forgotten cover versions of inspid songs by ex-Neighbours’ stars. I am going to spout lyrical about Tasmania’s greatest un-natural treasure: MONA. The Museum of Old and New Art.

Researching my post I came across this* article about its founder David Walsh and now I have nothing left to write. This article captures so well many of my own thoughts I find it pointless to say much more.

Except to say this place had a profound effect on me. I am the first to shout “the Emperor is naked” when it comes to modern art. I know what I like and I don’t like much. But I fell into this place, like Alice into the rabbit hole and it wove a spell on me.

This quote from the article sums up so much:

“At this point, MONA begins to feel like a mashup of the lost city of Petra and a late night out in Berlin. Everything about it is disorienting and yet somehow familiar, from the high-tech tropes to the low-culture babble, the black humour about so much that is so serious, the attention to aesthetics in a museum unsure if beauty exists or, if it does, if it matters.”

I wouldn’t claim to like or enjoy everything in this place but I can say that most things here were thought provoking and/or emotionally challenging and/or striking in a way which makes them intensely memorable.

There is a lot to be said for benevolent dictatorships and this is why. A place like this is not the work of a committee but of a man who knows what he wants and doesn’t give a crap what others think. A true eccentric who has earnt his money and wants to spend it on the cultural playthings that make him happy.

Reading his story after having visited this amazing place gives me lots of “aha” moments. This man and this place make sense.

It is not just the Museum itself which is impressive; it is the grounds, the positioning, the views. It makes a statement, it’s weird but totally unapologetic. I loved it. I want to go back and visit the Poo Machine. I need another MONA hit.

015

016017

019

* This is an awesome article. Read it. Really.