muppinstuff

ten years ago

Ever since Suse did this one, I've been thinking about my life ten years ago and I'm in a memish sort of mood today, so here goes.

What was I doing 10 years ago?
Ten years ago I was working in a cafe that I had owned with my mother and my sister for four or five years. I think we sold it in August so at about now, we would have been preparing to hand it over to the new owners, who were former employees. We had started the business as novices and the guys that bought it teached me to cook and run a commercial kitchen. In a lot of ways it was it was a great place (in others it wasn't but I'm not going to write about those) and it's a pity we never made more than a frugal living out of it. Thinking about it makes me feel more than a little nostalgic now. I'm not sure when the photo above was taken but it captures a certain light and mood I used to love, especially when having a break from the kitchen. The summer after the cafe I grew most of my food in my vegie patch (a good year for beans, basil, corn and rouge de marmande tomatoes) worked as a dishwasher and first or second cook and went to lots and lot of parties. Then early the next year, at the conclusion of my summer of love, I met Gerard at a club one night. And life took a very different course from then on.

What are 5 things on my to-do list for today
Remember to pay fees for next term at playgroup, attend to the various bits of bureaucracy that come with buying a house, go to a meeting about Friends of Coburg Olympic Pool's upcoming family funday, decide on what I am going to bake for cake stall at said fun day (I'm thinking gingerbread people from the Time Life Cooking of Germany book),cut Grace's claws fingernails.

5 snacks I enjoy
Biscuits, dry roasted unsalted almonds, those peanuts things with the sweet crunchy sesame crackery coating on the outside that my mum buys, liquorice in any form and fresh fruit, but only when it's nice and there are no biscuits around. Only joking, I do like fruit.

5 things I would do if I were a billionaire
Apart from travelling and giving up my day job so that I could immerse myself in creative pursuits and mothering, I think I'd like to set up useful businesses. The sort that help house the homeless, give jobs to the hard to employ, produce handmade toys to replace plastic crap, manufacture nourishing food, make spaces for community connection, reduce, re-use and recycle and generally make this part of the world a better place to live. Even if as businesses they just made enough to keep going. I'm sure it would all probably be harder than it sounds but one can dream.

5 places I have lived
Ringwood, Kew, Carlton, Camberwell and Brunswick. Apart from a short stint in Richmond in a house between the railway tracks and a share house in Fitzroy, these are the only places I have lived. Although I did get to visit my parents who were living in Port Moresby while I was at school in Kew.

Consider yourself tagged.

far away in time

I'm cooking lunch (it's cool enough to use the stove today), listening to the radio. It's rather good, they're playing a lot of eighties and early nineties music. Stuff I knew and loved. Like Man Overboard by Do-Re-Mi, some Funboy Three and Joey by Concrete Blonde. I'm digging it and grooving along gently. Then she plays Echo Beach by Martha and the Muffins and instantly I'm twenty again, sitting on the floor of my boyfriend's bedroom as he plays me music. He's a bit older than me and has been out in the world longer. He has lots of records. We're a bit high, no actually we're quite stoned and giggly. He plays me Echo Beach. I've never heard it before and I make him play it again and again. Later when we break up, I buy the record for myself.

So now I'm forty-four. For a moment I forgot how sensible I've become and turned up the music up and danced and sang out loud. Smiling. I still remember all the words. And what's more, it has survived the various vinyl purges (you mean I gave the Triffids record with the green, red and white cover to the opshop! yep) and I still have it on vinyl.

I know it's out of fashion
And a trifle uncool
But I can't help it
I'm a romantic fool
It's a habit of mine
To watch the sun go down
On Echo beach, I watch the sun go down

From nine till five I have to spend my time at work
The job is very boring, I'm an office clerk
The only thing that helps pass the time away
Is knowing I'll be back at Echo Beach some day

On a silent summer evening
The sky's alive with light
Building in the distance
Surrealistic sight
On Echo Beach
Waves make the only sound
On Echo Beach
There's not a soul around

From nine till five I have to spend my time at work
The job is very boring, I'm an office clerk
The only thing that helps pass the time away
Is knowing I'll be back at Echo Beach some day

Echo Beach
Far away in time
Echo Beach
Far away in time

Mark Gane, from Metro Music by Martha and the Muffins 1980.

And now I've just learnt how to embed youtube so we can listen to it live.

Oh wow, now Martha and the Muffins have done children's music amongst other things. Must investigate further.