"Work Drinx"

Friday after-work drinks took on a new meaning for some of us mothers about six years ago.

I had traveled to Christchurch where I stayed with a friend who took me along with her two small daughters to her Friday Work Drinx Group.

“It’s not called “After Work Drinx” because our job never ends,” she explained.

I thought it a great idea - I don’t drink coffee anyway so flagged the coffee group and formed my own Whangarei branch of the Friday Work Drinx.

It wasn’t hard to find members. It seemed, come the end of the week, many of us were hanging out for a glass of wine.

So from 3pm-5pm every Friday, we’d take turns at hosting this event. The host would provide the wine while everyone else brought a plate of nibbles and basically, like any coffee group, turn a blind eye while their house got trashed. (This is a lot easier to do when drinking wine by the way).

At its peak, there were up to ten of us – and then all the kids. We learnt in hindsight that the fewer the members the better because, at times it was just pure chaos. One child might be crabby, having missed a sleep, another (host child) might resent their precious train being played with and personalities would clash. A combination of too much excitement, junk food and tiredness would see fights breaking out, accidents happening and it could all end up a shambolic disaster.

But sometimes all the stars were aligned so they complied while us mothers sat and plotted our next weekend escape or girls night out.

It wasn’t quite the glamorous card-playing gossip fest of the Desperate Housewives of Wisteria Lane, but similar, somewhat.

Eventually. After five years, our drinks group dispersed when the inevitable call of work arose or members moved on.

But recently, on a whim, I decided to resurrect the drinks group.

The bi-annual three-day ‘surf safari’ had come round all too soon and I found myself a ‘surfer’s widow’ once again. I decided to make life as easy as possible that weekend and stay put but with the relentless rain, this proved challenging.

A bottle of feijoa bubbly had been twinkling at me from the fridge since my birthday and needed drinking so I rang a couple of fellow ‘widows’ and invited them round.

They were there with bells on. It seemed they’d had enough of the rain too and I guess my enticement of a liquid afternoon tea had conjured up pleasant images.

But somehow I’d failed to factor in the kids and, this time, the stars were misaligned - very misaligned.

There was only eight of them but enough to turn the place into a madhouse.

The two oldest boys ganged up on the girl their age and spent the entire time tearing through the house laughing hysterically and slamming doors with her hot on their heels. Both the one-year-olds decided it was time to exercise their vocal chords and subsequently shrieked in their mothers’ faces every time they tried to talk. Miss Three ran around being my resident nark informing me on what was going on in other parts of the house and Master Three decided to just make noise for the sake of it.

The middle boy – a Thomas fanatic - was happy though once he discovered the train track.

The conversation, if you could call it that, was very stilted, accidents happened, there were tears, a bar of soap got eaten (by a one-year-old) and, yes, the house got trashed.

It all came to a head when almost all the infants were in tears and we could no longer shout to each other over the ruckus. In a mad whirlwind, mothers scooped up their lots and were out the door leaving behind silence … and carnage.

But it wasn’t so bad, I thought that night after re-storing my house and tucking the three knackered munchkins into bed. The wine still got drunk and it made the afternoon fly by.

Then I leant in to kiss one of the twins goodnight and trod on a lollypop stuck to the carpet and changed my mind.

Yes, it would definitely be a one-off.

Cow Pooling

So who went and bought a cow this week? Or were you like me and renewed your vow to become more vegetarian?

If you watched Sunday last week you’ll know what I’m talking about. Mind you it’s been all through the news ever since so you’d have to live in a bubble not to have heard of “cow pooling” by now. This is when consumers buy shares in a cow and have it home- killed to save on costs of buying meat over the counter. I suppose it makes sense if it’s done in the right way but it was the graphics that put me off. The unsuspecting victim used for the sake of the story was called “Miss Moo”. I watched in horror as she blinked at the camera and switched her tail oblivious to her fate as the gun barrel took aim. The next frame was of her insides strung up and being butchered while the reporter gleefully added up how many meals of t bone, rump and eye fillet would fill the freezer.

What’s that you say? I should take a cement pill and harden up?

Yes, it’s all part of life and death but I like to pretend that meat is man-made – it’s the only way I can eat it – and avoid graphics such as those on Sunday at all costs.

But, although I was looking away for most of it, I was too lazy to leave the room so heard all the gory details.

Spinach and Ricotta Canelloni

As a result, it’s now meat-free Mondays in our house and a scrumptious dish of spinach and ricotta cannelloni was served up the following night. It’s only one night a week so far until I discover new vegetarian meals (depending on how this goes down with other members of the family who like their traditional meat and veg).

All this talk of meat reminded me of the day in January we purchased three weaner calves (solely for the purpose of keeping the grass down, I like to think) which the children promptly named Milkshake, Chocolate and James.

“They’re called weaner calves because they’ve just been weaned,” I explained more to myself than anybody else that night as we sat down to a meal of wiener schnitzel.

At that point my fork suspended in mid air as the penny dropped and I stared down at the crumbed meat on my plate.

“You don’t think … this is actually weaner calf … do you?”

I took the silence as a polite acknowledgment of my ignorance.

I’d lost my appetite so pushed the meal aside and later Googled it instead but ended up more confused than ever:

“Wiener schnitzel is a classic Austrian dish traditionally made of veal,” one site read.

“In Germany Wiener refers to the city of Vienna while a schnitzel is a cutlet,” it went on.

So Wiener wasn’t the German spelling of the word weaner as I had suspected after all. But just what exactly was veal? A quick search revealed that “Veal is the meat of young cattle (calves).”

My head was starting to hurt at this point so I shut down the window and watched Desperate Housewives instead.

From what I could deduce, although what I had on my plate was, indeed, not too dissimilar to the ‘babies’ we’d brought home that day, the same-sounding name was purely coincidental (unless Vienna was named after a cow). The wiener sausage/hotdog is different again but I did learn from another site that wiener is therefore a slang name used for a similar-shaped appendage.

So in the meantime, I’ve been keeping my distance from our ever-fattening cows down the paddock (who certainly won’t be ending up in my freezer) and trying to forget their names.

Holiday Entertainment

A man came home from work and found his three children outside still in their pyjamas playing in the mud with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn around the garden. The door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house and no sign of the dog. Walking in the door, he found ...an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, the cartoon channel was playing loudly and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door. He quickly headed up the stairs - stepping over more toys and piles of clothes - looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill or that something serious had happened. He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls. As he rushed to the bedroom he found his wife still curled up in bed in her pyjamas reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went. He looked at her bewildered and asked “What happened here today?” She again smiled and answered “You know every day when you come home from work and ask me what in the world do I do all day?”
''Yes," was his incredulous reply.
“Well, today I didn't do it.”

I’m sure many can relate to this message which circulated the internet some time ago. I always intended to try this but could never quite bring myself. However, unintentionally, my household resembled a milder version this week as the rain came down during the first day of school holidays and I watched the house get trashed. There was no point in fixing it – these kids were bored.

Älright time to use your imagination,” I told myself before building the kids a hut and serving sushi for a teddy bear’s picnic within. This was followed by watching The Wheels on the Bus whilst sitting on a “bus” comprising the dining room chairs with the driver holding a steering wheel made from a paper plate.

But that about exhausted my imagination and, luckily day two dawned with clear skies else I would likely have resembled the woman in the picture … ahh … minus the “with child” state. Three’s enough thanks.

Toilet Humour

Most youngsters are obsessed with poos and wees and farts and bums and my kids are no exception. I suppose it was inevitable my children would get the toilet humour with abundance. After all I never grew out of it myself. Someone once gave my son a whoopee cushion for his birthday and I got more fun out of it than he did. Long after the kids had lost interest, I’d still be playing jokes on unsuspecting visitors. Once their initial mirth has subsided they realise I’m still convulsing with hilarity. This is when they look at me peculiarly. Hubby just rolls his eyes and waves a dismissive hand.

It’s actually embarrassing but I can’t help it. It must be in my DNA to still find this hilariously funny in my thirties. Well ok, I can’t think of anyone in my immediate family but maybe it skipped a few generations and one of my long-gone ancestors used to roll round clutching their bellies in their black and white petticoated cloaks. Hard to imagine as they never used to crack a smile in their photos - they all looked a rather sullen bunch back in the day.

“Mum I know what I forgot to tell you!” exclaimed Master Six the other day. “Someone farted on the mat.”

He knows this gets my full attention and plays it like a trump card.

“Ohhhh who?” I ask, all ears. I well-remember the hilarity that followed the “pwarppp” as everyone looks around accusingly for the culprit. That single sound has the ability to disrupt a teacher’s well-planned lesson for minutes on end.

And, you see this is why I could never be a teacher. Rather than keeping a straight face and bringing the classful of giggling school children back to order, I’d be rolling round in hysterics on the mat, nose stuffed down my shirt with the rest of them.

Growing up as the only girl surrounded by boys didn’t help. Many school holidays we’d travel to mum’s good friend’s farm in Kaitaia where, between my two brothers, her three boys and their friends, I was vastly outnumbered. They don’t breed them ruder than farm boys and each holiday I’d return home with ruder jokes than the last that, once repeated, would make my friends’ eyes bulge with shock.

The only person I’ve come across who shared my warped sense of humour at its extreme was my good friend from school. Recently we caught up after many years while she was over from Australia. It didn’t take long before we were reminiscing and all the old sayings came out. We laughed away with tears streaming down our faces like old times. And then she stopped. And I didn’t.

She got that look in her eyes.

Okay, time to pull yourself together. “Think of someone dying,” I told myself, which worked for a little while before the bubble of mirth rose once more. Luckily she began laughing again, although I think, by now it was at me.

Because no one my own age seems to share my immature wit I get my kicks out of sometimes incorporating toilet humour into my children’s night time stories. It doesn’t do much for making them sleepy – the four of us are in hysterics (I can just hear my mum clicking her tongue and sighing.) And to save face, I’ve had to teach them here about the difference between private humour and public.

But I’ll have to grow out of it myself before there’s any likelihood my kids will and the chances are looking slim. Anyway there’s nothing like having a good old belly laugh with someone. Maybe, like the solemn-looking black and white ancestor who was obviously hiding something, it can be my legacy.