Confessions of a Bondi Blonde

Santa’s almost here!

I just completed an analysis of my naughty/nice ratio for this year. And though I know that I have been nice for more than 50% of the time, my chances to be naughty, alas, have almost been nought.

I like being nice. I’m a natural at it, which I suppose may mean that I am bland. Have a read of the following and tell me what you think.

I like stroking kittens and cooking wholesome meals for family and friends. I make an outstanding sherry trifle and only drink half the sherry in preparation, opening the door to dinner guests, sparkling just the right amount and never, ever being the first one to fall over. I bring in my neighbour’s garbage bin (all right, I fill it too) and I leave tips at restaurants, even if the service is pretty average. I lie a little bit about my age, but we all know that. I haven’t killed anyone, or even really wanted too, perhaps just hurt them a little – maybe a chest wax? I am only spookily enraged when behind the wheel of my family wagon and am confronted, for the seventh time in 10 minutes by some lollypop headed Eastern suburbs skinny-whinny-Minnie with a phone stuck to her blonde-streaked vacuum-packed head while driving really badly in a Lexus or Volvo 4WD. Then the language in my car turns bluer than Santa’s todger when he pees in the snow before jumping onto his sleigh for his annual DHL-style delivery. However, the car windows are always up and my acid comments only hits glass, dissipating in a vapour of vindictiveness, not burning anyone (some bounce back to me, I think as I only get angrier as the more-expensive-blonde drives off fast as the traffic light turns red). I have only given another driver the middle finger once in 2008. Which for me, is almost angelic and a marvellous improvement for my badly behaved finger, which had an almost weekly workout in 2007 – not a good year, that one, on balance. Finger has undergone anger management therapy and now stays firmly in its right place in line with its better behaved siblings, only venturing out to hit the “Credit” button on the Eftpos machine at David Jones every week or so.

But I like being naughty too. I like licking lakes. Like Luke in The Cat in the Hat. I love sharing lush kisses in darkened cinemas. I like wearing no knickers with short dresses on hot days to business meetings. Blah, blah, blah. Ya, ya, ya. Cashhhhh flowwwwww. Marrrrketing stratteggggy. No pannntiesss. Ho, ho, ho. (Who me?)

I like eating chocolate an ice cream in bed, holding it in my mouth as it melts and then I swallow its richness. (Then I’m nice again and clean my teeth).

I love nibbling nuts. Cashews and almonds are the nicest. Sucking on pistachios can also be a tasty treat, just don’t bite too hard as you can damage your teeth.

And I like fantasizing about being naughty. It’s delicious. But the conversion rate of naughty thoughts being turned into nice reality in 2008 was close to zero. I had lots of nefarious ideas involving chocolate, nuts and ice-cream and a darkened movie cinema too, come to that. But in the romance stakes I proved as popular as “AW(ful)stralia” the movie. My personal block/bonkbuster moments were rarer than a clever idea from Nathan Rees.

So, for now, I’ll focus on two of the nicer Kodak moments I experienced in 2008.

Memories are made of this

My children were happier than seals at feeding time at Taronga Zoo last week when I joined them for their school picnic at Parsley Bay near Vaucluse in the Eastern suburbs. 300 little energy balls streamed off the buses towards the ankle deep water, racing like newly hatched turtles towards the shoreline and the warm, wet, teal-blue beyond. The seagulls, fat on the hot chips being fed to them by a skinny kid ignored the children surging forward en masse, instead squalling for tomato sauce and more salt (even the seagulls are pushy food snobs in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs). The kids, mine in their midst, hit the water as one. 600 legs, 600 arms, 300 screams as the cold water hit their midriffs and the odd stray arm hit ‘em square in the face. We played cricket, ate all manner of junk food, stood on bindies in the grass and threw healthy food to the picky seagulls (who mostly turned away in disgust – thank goodness for Mynah birds). The kindergarten kids played tag with the graduating year six children, who cuddled their younger siblings close in bear hugs and little kisses (when their friends weren’t looking). The girls danced, the boys ran into them. They all came tumbling down.

The festivities had to end and at 2:00 p.m. the children were herded, two by two, back on the bus and back to school, like tired little lambs. Somehow mine regrouped their energy on the twenty minute bus trip back and demanded more cricket and more Red Rover ball games before dinner. The energy kicker must have come from all the additives in the wonderful junk food they had gorged on solidly all day.

Little horrors. Little darlings.

A first kiss

I don’t care if you are 15 or 105. There is nothing more wonderful than sharing a first kiss with someone that you are attracted too. It doesn’t matter if you are stuck in the rain, are waiting for a bus that never comes, have shared a movie date or are saying goodbye after a lovely meal. The first touch of someone else’s lips on yours is better than sex because it promises so much with the gentlest of deliveries. A first kiss carries a chance of future happiness. It’s the first tentative step towards intimacy. It is not rough or tumble or open to interpretation. It is a sealed pact between two not-yet-maybe-sometime-in –the-future lovers of a shared wish. A wordless agreement of a mutual attraction. And it’s funny and nice and wonderful to realise that, even if our bodies age towards blah, our hopes for happiness with a special other remain as fresh as a summer daisy chain as we go on our individual life journey.

I am divorced and a single mum of loudly rowdy boys. But I feel inspired, gentle, renewed and simply happy when I teeter-totter on my high heels away from a maybe-beloved who has shared with me a gentle touch and a gentle kiss. We both carry dreamy thoughts with us towards our separate slumber. It’s sweeter than honey and more restorative than that magic bee amber to a bruised soul and wounded heart. In this world of uncertainty it’s nice to know that romance is alive and well and sharing it beatific munificence with a lucky few every day. 2009 has 365 of them. Maybe on one of them a gentle kiss will beckon me forwards towards a brighter, nicer shared future.

Until then, naughty thoughts will have to suffice. Like the one involving me, another, a relaxing massage, warm honey and…. oh, but that would be telling.

Do you think Santa thinks I’ve been nice enough for a stocking-filler this year?

Nicely, primly (blandly?). Merry Christmas.