I have SouthCape Trilogy cheese, Lavosh, Tapestry Cab Sav Merlot and some Burn Doritos with Hot Dorito Salsa. Harry and Zoe will be a little late because they have to pick up Emily from the workshop. Between the two of us we are keeping the mechanics and crash repairers of Adelaide in Business.
“mum, when are they going to be here?”
“not long sweetie – they are picking Emily up, remember?”
“I’m hungry”
“OK – well how about I heat up some soup I made”
“yum”
Five minutes later I give Dash some pumpkin soup and tell her to blow before she swallows, in case it’s hot (that gives me a disgusting pool side vision memory which I try and erase from my bloody brain).
“mum, it tastes very um what’s the word …..pumpkinny”
“that’s because it’s pumpkin soup darling” I say little sarcastically
“so is it just pumpkin in it”
“yeah, and a little bit of salt and cream”
“well, I think you should put less pumpkin and salt in it” she holds up the tissue box and says “see this box, if this is the pumpkin, and you used all this, I think you should cut it here” she indicates a third of the way in “and only put this much in” she points to the remainder of the box.
“Well sweetie, that would just make less soup, but it wouldn’t make it taste any different. How about I add more cream to yours?”
“oh yeah cool” she exclaims
When I come back in with the soup and additional cream stirred in, she’s pulled her pants down and is bending over slapping her bum yelling “whoa, whoa” (my signature sing and dance holler)
“honey I know I’ve told you, you have a cute butt, but what the?”
“I’m just so excited we sorted out the soup”
Seconds later Zo and Harry walk in the back door and Deputy gives an approving “aarruuhhhhh” howl hello.
“I love ya” I pat the dog, as Harry runs past and jumps on Dash
Me and Zo give a customary embrace and I have this urge to kiss her cheek with a mwah on each side. I never do this, I don’t know what’s come over me.
Zoe flinches, ever so subtly and we sit down in our usual chairs and smile awkwardly. Do I or don’t I tell her about the dream? Do I or don’t I ask her about what she was doing at the Hilton? Maybe the ‘mwah’ urge was the universe telling me forget about it, she’s your best friend and nothing’s wrong. Ok, I’ll trust that thought.
I reach over and pour a glass of red each. I pour to the publicly accepted half way mark of the massive glasses we use. We make eye contact and Zoe raises her eyebrow, I smile, nod, and fill it to the top. In true ‘Cougar Town’ style, she sips from the glass before lifting it to avoid any spillage and I do the same. We clink and Zoe asks
“what shall we toast to today?”
Before I can answer both our phones simultaneously go off indicating texts.
We read our respective phones and High Five. We’ve just been given an exclusive invite to a staff gym party by Jed.
“isn’t that the same night as our School Reunion?” I ask Zo
“no it’s the same weekend, but the reunion is Friday and this is Saturday”
“Awesome – party weekend – well that’s our toast sorted”
Zo nods and we clink glasses again.
“what are we gonna wear?”
First thing that ever comes to my mind.
“I can’t buy anything – Troy has put me on a serious buying ban, due to the car repairs and my bad ass plans for my 40th. He says it’s gonna cost him an arm and a leg and he may need to sell some of Dash too. We saw on a show the other night, that if you sold all your skin for the price leather hide goes for, all your organs, the .02 of an ounce of gold and other minerals we have in our bodies, and the water which is not worth much, everyone’s body is worth about half a million dollars! I told him we wouldn’t get that much for Dash because she’s a child, but based on his weight gain lately we might make double that for him”.
“you are a little wealth of useless facts, aren’t you Jay”
“well I’m certainly not an expert in anything like you, but I like to think of myself of a master of nothing but a jack of all trades”
“so as for what you’re wearing Jay, you need to recycle? Shall we check out your closet?”
“I tell ya what I’d really like to wear to the school reunion and that’s your black dress – but obviously – you might be wearing that”
“I haven’t decided yet – shall we sort a back-up plan for you and work on the gym party? And we’ll do me next week at my house”
“Okay”. We head to the bedroom. Don’t worry, Zoe grabs the wine and her glass and I grab the cheese and my glass.
I pull out ALL my dresses.
- 1.Recent black purchase with stone shoulder straps
- Little green dress with three green ruffles down center with white ribbing and white tie string halter neck
- White short A line chiffon dress, with body hugging underlay, one sleeve under arm, one covered with chiffon
- Matching pink dress as above (what? – I got two for the price of one – altogether cost me $20)
- A line grey dress (short of course) with plaited shoe string shoulder straps that meet at back and form a single plait down center of back. It has layers of satin and chiffon around body.
- Another A line short satin dress fading from ocean blue to white (I have the perfect matching blue shoes) with a single knotted neck tie to hold it up
- Strapless blue dress – knee length – I discard straight away as my biggest asset are my legs.
- Knee length black dress with sexy bust ties at cleavage and ruffle frill down center and ruffles on shoulder straps (love me frills) – again discarded immediately.
- Little black dress (everyone should have one). Short, tight, whole in centre of upper back, sleeves are off the shoulder. Never worn – look too muffin toppy in it. Bought it because it was $10 and thought I’d lose weight to fit it. Discard.
- Electric blue scrunched (short-sort of goes without saying doesn’t it) dress with lovely shaped figure hugging shoulder straps that show off my shoulders. Has a v neck showing off my cleavage and bone ribbon down center and on straps.
- Last but not least (I mean I have others but they are not worth rating a mention because I definitely won’t be wearing them) my tiger print, really, really, really short dress which is hard to describe but quite flattering – good for days when not loving the upper body but still happy with legs and ass.
After an hour of trying them all on and parading them with appropriate shoes and accessories, a second bottle of wine and a retrieval of the Doritos and Dip because we’ve run out of cheese – Harry and Dash come running into the room.
“mum come and see!! It’s been snowing!!”
“yeah auntie Jay, it’s awesome, come quick”
“oh god” Zoe and I moan in unison.
“mum I know what your gonna say” Dash says as we follow “your gonna say, for fuck sake” (OMG mother of the year right there) “but it’s awesome, we even made snow angels”
We get to the lounge room, and there presenting us, is in fact, a snow storm. Well a Styrofoam one any way! We had a flat screen delivered a few weeks ago and as kids do, they love the big boxes, so we’d pulled out all the protective packaging and stacked it in the corner (’cause we’re too lazy to take it to the bin) and let Dash play with the box. She has been quite ingenious over the last weeks. She’s made a space ship that has a gear stick, steering wheel and cup holder that she can step in and drive around the house. She’s also built a spaceship outfit with all my Alfoil around postage cylinders for her arms and legs and a helmet. HOWEVER, today the kids have focused their attention on the Styrofoam and broken it all up into tiny particles AND emptied the two bean bags out. There were even Styrofoam balls stuck to Deputy.
“ohhhh” groans Zo
“Okay, well far be it for me to stifle your creativity, but Dash, you are helping me clean this up when Harry goes”
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned but me and Zoe have a rule. We clean up our own houses, after the kids have been.
There’s not much longer left before it’s time for the guys to leave so Zo gets home in time for Luke. We still haven’t decided on an outfit(s) for me but there’s no hurry. It’s a month away.
As Zo and Harry are walking out the door, Troy arrives home.
‘hey Zo, before you go, you didn’t tell me what you thought of my birthday party idea. Troy thinks it’s a bit over the top – what about you?’
They exchange a sideways glance – to put it in Dash’s words, what the HECK is going on?
‘I don’t know Jay– how many people are gonna wanna dress up in the eighties?’
“well who cares, I don’t care if they don’t, but I want to.”
“we’ll talk more next week okay – I gotta go…… to get home for Luke”
“alright then – see ya at the gym”
“see-ya”
“Well that was awkward” Troy says, as I come back inside from waving them off.
“Awkward for me or awkward for you?” I chime as I storm off (and …by the way…slam a door).
Healthy, Happy & Whole 