I HAVE A PROBLEM.

I have a problem.

Lots of them probably, but I’ll only deal with one right now.

My husband has taken Q to the garden at my parent’s place so she can eat snails and chicken manure, giving me much needed time to pack for tomorrow’s beach holiday.

(Hear that Mother Nature – BEACH HOLIDAY. Because it is SUMMER. And that’s what people do in the summer. They go to the beach for a swim because it is HOT. Summer is one of the reasons I live in Sydney. I am really mad at you, Mother Nature, also because you duped us with a few scorchers in October and I bought a pair of shorts that I haven’t worn since. You owe me 24 bucks).

Anyway Q isn’t here and the apartment is quiet and only in a state of semi-destruction because she wasn’t here long enough this morning to make it complete.

She and I hang out a lot. Pretty much 24 hours a day for over a year. She’s kind of like another appendage except that she doesn’t obey my commands.

And now, without her here, (even though it means I can wrap the one gift we got her - a book cos I’m so bored of the ones we’ve got - and G’s gifts - won’t write it here on the off chance he reads this post - and can actually pack without the great unpacker around to ruin all my hard work) I miss her.

I miss her.

I miss her little mischievous, toothy smile, her annoying back-of-the-throat groan she does when she wants to be picked up, the way she pulls out all the books and throws them all over the room, the way she gets up on all fours and crawls about, always carrying some treasure in her mouth. I miss her unpacking my wallet and the food she throws about while she’s eating.

Actually, I really don’t miss those last two things. My glasses are not that rose tinted.

And now I’ve wasted precious packing and wrapping time and must stop this separation nonsense.

I doubt she’ll learn Russian while we’re apart. Or start to hop. Or read. And I’m pretty sure she’ll still know who I am when we see each other again.

The cloth nappies do nothing
for her derriere.

I am a loser.

Start packing Hart.


You deserve one big eye roll.

CHRISTMAS SHOPPING IN TOWN. DEATH TO A MARRIAGE.

Here in the land of Q we’re a bit late getting into the spirit of Christmas. Not because we’re Grinches, but because we’ve been rather consumed of late and because the weather BLOWS. 

If it’s going to be a cold Christmas I expect it is because I am in the northern hemisphere drinking eggnog and wearing enough layers to hide the eggnog that has stuck to my waist and thighs. I do not expect Christmas in a semi-hot, mostly cool, perpetually damp environment where no one can decide if they want to drink a margarita or a rum toddy.

So as the agenda was rather free today, we decided to jump a bus into town and join the festivities. Really get amongst it. Throw ourselves in the elfish deep end as it were.

This is how things went:

·               Q woke up really early, meaning that she wants to take her 1 nap at about 9am, which is not ideal because it is then a long, slow, agonising ride until bedtime that night. If you choose to try to delay sleep – as we did – you pay for it with the whinge. It just depends if you want that whinge from 9-12 or from 11-8. I prefer the former for obvious reasons.

·               We left half an hour later than planned and G heads for the bus stop that is only local stops, so we watch 3 express buses sail past before heading to the other bus stop where I realise…

·               G hadn’t brought the gift he needed to return because he’d bought the wrong thing, with him.

·               G returns to house.

·               Without keys.

·               G returns to the bus stop and we realise he doesn’t have enough rides left on his travel ten.

·               I go to the newsagency to get another pass while G returns to the house with my keys to get the gift.

·               We leave Q at the bus stop.

·               Just kidding.

·               We get on a bus whose breaks screech and whose tires skid every time the driver slows down. We begin to doubt our survival until Christmas in the first place.

·               Every man and his dog, aunt, cousin, spouse and CHILD is in town and as you walk past people all you can hear is;

·               ‘why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?’

·               ‘what took you so long?’

·               ‘christmas is not just about you, you know.’

·               G goes to get us coffees while Q and I block traffic outside the diamond store in the Strand Arcade.

·               I should add that it is raining.

·               We do not have umbrellas.

·               We gather a few gifts interspersed with countless phone calls to our family to make sure we get the right thing. People can be very vague with their gift list.

·               Myself included. I asked for new bras because none of my non-breastfeeding ones fit, a terrible, horrible disaster that I don’t care to dwell on in this blog. I do not know my new size.

·               G tries not to swear as person after person does something stupid in front of him as he pushes Q through the throng.

·               Q has reached her limit, we head for the bus stop.

·               G realises he has lost his Amex card.

·               Is not successful in stopping his swearing in front of his child.

·               This annoys me and I head for the bus stop while G heads back to the shops to buy my gift.

·               With what card I do not know.

·               Q and I get home, (she has meanwhile yelled her disgust at still being in the pram the whole bus ride home) to discover that G still has my keys and so we can’t get in the front door.

·               Send G an urgent text since he’s not answering his phone. Odd since that thing is stuck to his ear most of the day. Q crawls on the wet, muddy ground and gets filthy.

·               G returns home.

·               I make a cup of tea.

·               And now I’m going to get my toes painted because I want to be decadent and spend money unnecessarily.

·               This has been the Christmas story Llewellyn/Hart style.

·               The end.

EASTER...CHRISTMAS...WHERE ARE WE UP TO JESUS?

At the end of November when we decided to investigate opening a restaurant we didn’t presume anything much would happen for 6 months at least.

In barely a month of research, we have found a venue, taken a builder through, met with accountants, lawyers, brokers, designers and purveyors, written and rewritten a business plan and tried to locate the funds necessary to open the thing in the first place.

In between this I’ve had a couple of gigs, Q turned 1, we celebrated US thanksgiving, had a quick work trip to Melbourne and apparently it is Christmas this weekend.

Who knew?

Yesterday I wished someone a happy Easter.

Gregory turned to me the other day and said; ‘do you think things are moving a bit fast?’

And I replied ‘what? Like how we met and decided to get married within months, then flipped a coin and decided to leave NYC and move to LA, then road tripped across the US and ended up in Australia, then discussed the possibility of falling pregnant and discovered we’d be parents 9 months later. And now that human is one and we've decided to open a restaurant? Fast like the last few years have been? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

My saving grace is that Australians are inherently lazy and even thought it has been a total shite summer as far as weather is concerned, every person we’re dealing with from the landlord to the lawyer has loudly declared they won’t be doing much between now and say, oh, the middle of January.

Fine by me.

Happy Easter everyone. 

See you on the flip side.

STARBUCKS ANNOYS ME, BUT HAPPY THANKSGIVING ANYWAY.

Yesterday we celebrated Thanksgiving, my very favourite of the American holidays.

We held the occasion at my youngest brother’s apartment, very nicely situated on the ground floor of a building that backs onto the harbour, with a salt water pool and evidently full of really boring tenants as not a single other person ventured out on such a magnificent day.

Lets also remember that we’ve just had a week of torrential rain and back-in-your-winter-woollies weather, which had Q (and therefore her mother) losing her mind.

What’s wrong with people? You couldn’t have dragged us inside even if you’d bribed us with food.

Speaking of...we celebrated Thanksgiving by showing solidarity with the 50-odd million illegal immigrants to the US and had Mexican.

Photography by our friend Blair.

All homemade by my chef husband, and followed with a number one cake that was made with love, if not expertise by Q’s doting mother. Moi.

Blair did not take this picture. I did.
I tried people, really I did.

I don’t have to do another number ‘one’ for another 9 years. 

I love Thanksgiving, it’s such a great holiday. No gifts, no pressure, just a great meal with your favourite people.

Although people did bring gifts, because it also coincided with Q’s first birthday and she got spoilt rotten. I’m going to hide a bunch of them and stagger their introduction, claiming credit for them as we go.

She also got given oodles of second-hand clothes.

In 12 months I have bought her two things – a dress to wear to her uncle’s wedding and a swimming nappy.

When people first gave me clothes, I meticulously re-washed and folded them all. Now? Bugger it.

What kind of friend would give you dirty clothes?

If the Yanks do one thing well, it’s holidays. They really throw their backs into it. We were in the states just recently in time for Halloween and I really wished Q had been old enough to want to dress up as a Munchkin from The Wizard of OZ, and make her father dress up as a lion and me a wicked witch, and parade from house to house seeking treats in the chilly dark air, passing ghosts and supermen and fairies and stopping at places lit with candles, jack-o-lanterns and spooky looking ghouls.

 Back in 2002 when I’d moved to the states, it had been about the same time of year, and I remember watching in delight as people strung Christmas lights out their New York apartments, dragged Christmas trees down snowy streets and up 3 flights of stairs and the incessant ringing of the Salvation Army Bell on every street corner, calling for donations.

I remember pumpkin spiced lattes at Starbucks, which just sound outright disgusting to me.

Hot pumpkin flavoured coffee mixed with milk?

Gross.

I don’t care for Starbucks as a rule, their coffee is notoriously terrible. But they’re open late, don’t care how long you sit at their tables, and are guaranteed to have a public toilet. Many a time I’ve ducked into one on my way from dance class to work, desperately ripping leotard and tights aside to avoid a total catastrophe.

So thank you Starbucks for your latrines, but please stop calling your cups tall, grande and venti.

You are not Italian.

And neither are your customers.

The terms small, medium and large will do just nicely thank you very much.

You can almost redeem a cup of bad Starbucks coffee with another great American invention – half and half. The half cream-half milk you can buy to try to overcome the acidic taste of burnt percolated coffee, made at 5am and still festering on the hot plate at 10pm that night.

 Wheat thins are another gem we Aussies are missing out on. Delicious wheaty, salty goodness. They’re a mid-priced cracker, but as all food in the US is a 9^th of the price we’re charged down under, you can actually afford to buy them.

 The Duggars are another American favourite. Or they used to be. At first I thought they were funny and weird.

Now, with their 20^th child on the way, I think they’re just weird.

All their children play a musical instrument.

20 kids.

That’s an orchestra people.

But there’s never a show of artistic histrionics in their family, they’re all always so calm.

I imagine they avoid caffeine. Even seasonally inspired pumpkin spiced lattes.

It seems they avoid Halloween too, though for religious, not glucose related hyperactivity purposes.

Shopping in general (while still a detested activity) is a lot more bearable in the US when you go to the outlet malls near my in-laws house and buy up a year’s supply of running shoes for the same amount as one pair here.

It is how my husband justifies his collection of Chucks sneakers. Every colour but maroon.

America has a lot to offer (if you can look past the jeans and white sneakers) and thanksgiving is one of the best.

So while we swapped green bean casserole for homemade guacamole, overcrowded buses at Port Authority for strolls in the burning sun, and snowball fights for cool swims in sparkling water, it was still a fabulous celebration.

Thank you America, for giving me thanksgiving, in an I-married-an-American kind of way, and welcome to the holidays people, let the festivities begin.