Sunday, June 30, 2013

I am not Michaelia Cash

Good morning everyone. Over here at the Lily Pad we're mourning celebrating surviving the start of the school holidays. So it's board games, boredom and tantrums ahoy.

Something weird happened this week. I went off-grid (because I'm cool and groovy and hip with all the latest digital terminology the young kids use) for two hours because I had to drive to the thriving metropolis of Colac. 

As an aside, Colac was very nice to me although JEEBUS it was cold. Come on everyone, wave to Colac! Hi Colac!

In those two hours you changed your Prime Minister.

I mean, come ON. I look away for JUST A MOMENT and this is what happens.

Never. Going. Off. Grid. Again.

Maybe.

As a result, I spotted this particularly edifying speech by Coalition Senator Michaelia Cash, who is the Opposition Spokeswoman for Women (whatever that means):




For Dog's sake, people, please know that, despite sharing similar names and I assume internal gentialia, this woman is NOT me.

Look, here's Michaelia Cash:

Scary image source

And now here's me:


See? Nothing. Alike. (Plus I spell my name correctly).

I hope that's cleared up this common but appalling misconception.

In way of apology for putting that hateful and ridiculous performance into your eyesockets and earballs, please bask in the majesty of the Aurora Australis, as it appeared in Geeveston, Tasmania, last night.

Gorgeous photo from Huon Photography

See you in the soup, frog-lovers.

Monday, June 24, 2013

Dramatic Pansy is dramatic (and other miracles)

Hi kids. Thanks so much to everyone who's read my praying mantis travails and had a giggle at Russell Brand.

I'm busy again with other "work" but I'm around here and there. 

If you look very carefully, you might spot random body parts belonging to The Frog here. Apparently boobs are extremely controversial and, along with fun, should not be allowed.

You can also catch me having a dramatic whine about the state of Australian politics over at The Shake

For now I'll leave you with this week's miracle - the pansy my son bought me for Mother's Day died in suitably dramatic fashion in the frost two nights ago and then BEHOLD! It rose from the dead on the third second day! (Mainly because I brought it inside out of the bloody horrible weather we've been having).

Dramatic Pansy is dramatic

It's a Monday miracle! Praise be to baby cheeses!


See you in the soup, frog-lovers.


Wednesday, June 19, 2013

How (not) to interview a guest on national television

Hi folks. Today I'm working on boring non-bloggy-type stuff but I'm also writing some HILAIRE stuff for The Shake.

In the meantime, I give you some awesome from Russell Brand, taking down some idiotic morning television hosts in the US

Oh America. Any more conservative and you'd suck yourself up your own arse. 

If you're pushed for time, watch from 5 mins onwards. Rabbits. Headlights. Perfection.

See you in the soup, frog-lovers.



Monday, June 17, 2013

How I took a praying mantis to McDonalds (nature is an arsehole but humans are worse)



Nawwwwww such a cutie! But keep away from my fries, OK?
Last week I took a praying mantis to McDonalds. It was a female False Garden Mantid and I took her there by mistake, but it’s not the first time I’ve taken insects to random places. 

I remember having one of those plastic bug catcher toys as a child, a book on Australian insects and an insatiable curiosity.

Oh and a magnifying glass. Sorry, ants. I was an arsehole.

The praying mantis was a personal fave.

My long-suffering mother would ask, “You haven’t brought any creatures home today in your school bag, have you?”

“No mum.”

At that moment there was a more than 70% chance that in my bedroom was a 15 centimetre-long brown mantis swaying gracefully, tilting its weird triangular head from side to side, wondering how the fuck it had ended up on the bed of a small child in the suburbs of our nation’s capital.

There were also the countless tadpoles and frogs. Butterflies. Grasshoppers. Spiders. Snails.

All judiciously caught and brought into the house to be “looked after”. More often than not this served as a euphemism for being stared at for an hour, forgotten and allowed to run riot around the house.

Do you know how small a newly hatched praying mantis is? I do. The little nest I’d lovingly installed in my bug catcher broke open, spewing tiny, perfectly-formed mantis babies out through its holes, along the mantel piece to dubious freedom. We were finding miniscule mantis kids all over the lounge room for weeks.

“Watch out mum, there’s a mantis on your chair!”

(Deep sigh). “Of course there is.”

There I was last week, some 37-or-so years later, pulling out of the McDonalds drive-thru. I looked up and found my gaze unexpectedly caught in the steely triangular glare of two beady little green eyes.

Look at her ickle face! LOOK AT IT!
What the fuck?

Yes, there she was, a little green mantis, sitting on my car bonnet LOOKING STRAIGHT AT ME. Like the next wave in hood ornaments for the uber-environmentally-friendly motorist.

Except her look was anything but happy.

Her look said “How could you leave me on that basil plant? How can you expect me to survive on a diet of grasshoppers and aphids AND WHERE ARE MY FRIES, BITCH!?”

I was temporarily stumped. What to do?

If I drove off and she was blown away not only would she smash into the windscreen, breaking her exoskeleton and my heart, but she would also never get her fries.

So I did what any person in my situation would do.

I slowed down to 30 kilometres an hour, turned my hazard lights on, and inched home slowly in the left lane so that my praying mantis wouldn’t get blown away.*

I then took photos of her and tweeted about our little jaunt, before lovingly popping her back onto her basil plant. And not once did she bite me, despite me not sharing my fries with her because I love nature and all but come on, there are limits.

As a child, what I liked about creatures was that if you piss one off they’ll run away, bite or sting you. Nothing much has changed.

Nature is an arsehole, but at least it’s honest about it.

Unlike humans.

What a couple of fucked-up weeks we’ve had. Politics here has reduced itself to tales of men in threateningly blue ties, threats that an LNP government will interfere with our collective uterus, questions about the PM’s partner’s sexuality, and accusations that the leader of our country has breasts.

How very dare they.

Humans really are arseholes.

I’m always rescuing creatures that could bite or sting me and releasing them while those around me are screeching “Kill it! Kill it!”

They may have a point, but frankly I find humans far more vicious. So I’m off to find a small animal to take on a trip to the post box.

* Yes I know they have wings and she could have flown away SHUT UP.
My son found the photo and created a Minecraft/Praying Mantis mashup.
You're welcome.

 Have you ever taken part of nature somewhere random by accident?