Adrenalin junkies must have early bed times

I've always thought husband would look particularly dashing in motorbike leathers, riding around a la James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause (I could be Marilyn if I dyed my hair...):

(source)

But - of late there have been lots of ads on TV pushing the line 'What's between you and the road' trying to encourage motorcyclists and moped drivers to wear proper protective gear when they ride. It also reminded me of the time someone from the Museum's Discovery Centre rang us on a weekend looking for one of the collection penis pumps for a series of motorbike ads.

So despite how spunky he would look, I really do prefer husband all in one piece, with his skin on and all.

Yesterday I had a further little reminder as to the dangers of bikes when I assisted at an accident on the way home from work.

We were just stopping at a set of lights when I saw a guy in bike leathers and helmet hopping off the road, take off his helmet, lay on the footpath rolling around screaming. I quickly pulled in and jumped out to see if I could help.

A young girl in a car had done a u-turn into this guy on his bike and now the bones in his left foot were poking through the leather of his Blundstones. He was not very happy! Husband grabbed the quilt from the boot of our car, and myself a lady from Spotlight and a couple of guys helped keep him calm and called an ambulance.

The ambos were really nice guys and got to play bandage passer girl (my best role yet!) as well as watch one of the guys cut his boot and sock off to check out the injury properly. The biker got to suck on one of those morphine sticks and kept checking that his bike was safe and off the road (which it was thanks to another passer by).

The words gruesome, sinewy, boney fragments and ow sum up the situation quite well.

They then put on an inflatable cast to keep his ankle and foot nice and still and trundled him off to hospital. The cops hadn't shown yet so I left my business card with a guy who was happy to hang around and I trundled off to craft night.

I was sooooo full of adrenalin. My legs were shaking and I felt like I was on a bit of a high. Husband jokingly said to be careful with my knitting that night becuase I was so jittery - jokes on him, I was knitting him a beanie.

When I got home I was exhausted - adrenalin junkies must have early bed times.

Welcoming baby Jack

A very big welcome to the newest edition to my family - Jack Peeter Heffernan. My ever lovely cousin Aeron gave birth after a brief 45minute labour - quite the feat!



Little Jack is the second bubba in the Heffernan-Pilli line after Thomas. This leads to my favourite topic - Genealogy! What relation do they bear to me? I am continually having this argument with people - what do you call your cousin's children?

Dear old Anthropology in first year, dear old Chris Gregory and his sacred versus profane, and most relevant to this conversation, dear old kinship.

Leaving the cultural anomalies aside (such as marrying your maternal parallel cousin) you describe your cousin in degrees (first, second or third) and by removes (once removed, twice removed).

Degrees - this is how many steps away your common ancestor is. If it is your grandparent then that is a first cousin. If it is a great grandparent, then it is a second cousin.*

Removes - this describes any generational gap. A great example of this is your first cousin's child - this is your first cousin once removed. Similarly, I would call my mum's cousin's my first cousin once removed. I would call my grandparent's cousin my first cousin twice removed.

So Thomas and Jack are my first cousins once removed. Quite the mouthful.


When you don't share an ancestor, technically you aren't cousins, although I've always called my cousin's cousin my second cousin.

Scarily, if my sister married my brother in-law (this is a pretty BIG if!) then our children and their children would be double cousins.

Piccie below is from Wiki and may vaguely help those of your still reading...

Tune in next week when I explain the difference between cross cousins and parallel cousins, and why you can't marry your cross cousins... or not.

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*If it is your parent then they are your sibling, you nonce.

The ****ing Count

Ah, comedy gold!

Some Random Stories

Have got a series of small stories to share and rather than do a mad multiple post thing, have put them all together pictorially...

Story 1: Skanky Seagulls - Hitchcock eat your heart out
I think almost all of Melbourne's seagulls live in the old glass factory next door to work. You can just see the tiny little specs along the factory roof. Lucky us, the staff car park is behind this building (which is fenced off because of the asbestos - woo hoo). It is now seagull breeding season and the little bastards are not only shitting all over my car, but have started dive bombing! Eek!

They scream at you as they dive so you have plenty of time to wave your arms around. So they aren't as scary as magpies who silently swoop and cut your head open, but are somehow skankier so less pleasant.

Every afternoon I get that scary Hitchcock-esque feeling that it is only a matter of time until they just keep throwing themselves at me until I get rid of the love birds... or whatever the love bird equivalent is for seagulls.


Story 2 - Small dog hides under layers of bedding
The ever charming Beans doesn't have a lot of body fat - this is his own fault for being far too over active. No matter how much he gets fed, the little bastard (I'm assuming his parents weren't married) stays skinny. This means he gets chilly easily. Consequently it is not unusual to find him hiding under: the clothes horse standing over the heater; our bedding; our clothes; all of the dog bedding piled on top of each other as per the picture above.

I'd thrown it all in a pile to do the vacuuming and came back later to find Beans nesting underneath it all.


Story 3 - Late nights, big lunches and alcohol makes blonde boy sleepy
Husband and I celebrated Easter Sunday at HP's palace (see Trouble with a capital T). It was a fabulous meal, which I neglected to mention in the previous post. Just thought the piccie of the sleepy blonde boy above (lets call him SP) illustrates well how we all felt after the delicious meal and copious amounts of alcohol, and alcohol fuelled conversation.


Story 4 - Raw Comedy

Husband and I went to Raw Comedy last weekend to see a friend from Canberra compete. Hadn't been to the main hall at Melbourne Town Hall before - would be a fun venue to perform in. Had lots of laughs, especially over a story about Croesus which I was pleasantly surprised about.

Story 5 - Buster wears a Buster

Buster's eyelid surgery went well and she is wearing a bucket/Elizabethan Collar for the next week. I was amused to see the bucket brand was called Buster. She wasn't so amused. I feel evil for laughing when she gets stuck places, tries to pick up her ball through the plastic, tries to lick us through the plastic, tries to bite Beans through the plastic, tries to scratch through the plastic, etc etc.

The good news is that the vet is v pleased with how it is healing and she can have her stitches (and hence bucket) out early - Friday evening.


Story 6 - Effing Giant Ferris Wheel

Can't wait for this massive Ferris wheel in Docklands to open in November. I drive past it every day and have watched it slowly come together. Apparently you'll be able to see Geelong from the top of it. Not sure why I'd want to do that, but I guess that's a good thing?