There are cyclists, and then there’s the J Team!

By Monday, June 27, 2011 8 Family, The Councillor No tags Permalink 0

My sisters and I are to sport what The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills are to cleaning the toilet.  We know what it is, we know it’s important, and if we absolutely have to do it, we will. But there has to be a bloody good reason for it.

And so we found ourselves, at 7.00am on a glorious Sunday morning, dressed in various interpretations of cycling fashion, ready to pedal 10km, all in the name of fundraising.

No to put too fine a point on it, but FREAKING 7.00AM on a glorious FREAKING SUNDAY MORNING.

Cycling Sisters - Janey, Me, Kate

None of us is at our best in the morning. None of us rocks lycra. And none of us has ridden a bike more than a handful of times in the past, oh, decade.  Indeed, as my sister Kate helpfully pointed out to anyone who walked past my bike, it still has the little spiky bits of rubber on the wheels that say “this is a brand new bike”, which would be fine, except that I have had it for nearly 2 years.  Still, my bike (an anniversary gift from The Councillor, which shows how stumped he was for a gift that year) is really pretty – it’s not like I’m ever going to do the Tour de France.

Making fun of my bike did provide everyone with a bit of light relief at such an early hour. Apparently my bike seat was ridiculous in the extreme.  It’s true that I chose it especially for the supreme level of comfort it provided to my lady parts, but hey, after the ride I didn’t need use a pack of frozen peas in a way frozen peas should never be used. Up there for thinking.

Comfort Seat

 

Apparently this gives me away as a non-cyclist...

Anyway, there was a very good reason for all of this (aside from the opportunity to make fun of my bike) – we were riding in the “Brissie to the Bay” Bike Ride to raise funds for the MS Society. You may or may not be aware that my youngest sister Jane was recently diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Which sucks. It did explain her munty foot though. Anyway, once Janey had gotten over the initial shock of the diagnosis, she decided that one of the ways of dealing with it was to throw herself into “the cause”. That is, to join in the MS Society’s extraordinary effort at raising funds to find a cure for this sucky disease.

The “Brissie to the Bay” Bike Ride is in it’s 20th year and is Brisbane’s biggest charity bike ride.  There are 4 distances – 100km, 50km, 25km and 10km.  Guess which one we did?  The name “Brissie to the Bay” is drawing a bit of a long bow when applied to the 10km ride. The closest we got to the Bay was when we looked at the map of the route taken by the 50 & 100km riders and went “Geez, it’s a long way to the Bay”.  It did occur to us as we set off on our 10km ride that our sponsors may have been under the mistaken impression that we were in fact planning to ride from Brissie to the actual Bay. If you sponsored us on that basis, umm… it felt like 100km…?

Anyway, Janey formed “The J Team”, a crack team of family and friends determined to overcome an early wake-up call, muscle fatigue and coffee withdrawal all in the name of finding a cure for MS.

In the leadup to the ride, it was all about sponsorship.  We were more than ably led by Janey, whose shameless use of the “I have MS” card saw The J Team hit up family, friends, co-workers and tweeps for the remarkable total of $9,250.  Given that her original target was $3000, reaching nearly $10,000 is humbling and awesome.

Thing is though, once someone has made a donation, you are a bit obliged to go through with the whole ride-10km-thing.  Sure, when we agreed to do it, we were all “Yeah! We can totally get up at sparrow fart and ride 10kms and raise ten large to help Janey!”.  We made grandiose plans to train as though The Commando was standing over us. We committed to converting our teletubbie-like physiques to lean, mean bike-riding machines. We were pumped.

To be fair, Kate and Janey did train. Once. And Kate’s husband Jim is, in fact, training for the Gold Coast half marathon, so frankly he has done enough training for all of us. For my part, I did not one single thing, other than check my bike was still pretty. Also, we realised that my 11yo son’s bike was so small his knees hit his chin when he pedalled.  This was problematic, so as part of our family’s cycling preparation, The Councillor took him out to buy a bike that didn’t look like it should have training wheels on it.

My daughter Maisie rides on a tandem attached to The Councillor’s bike, so her preparation involved locating her Dora the Explorer helmet and deciding whether to wear pink sequinned boots or crocs. She totally gets cycling.

The Councillor and Maisie

I may have mentioned that not much gets me up at 6am. Flights, generally, are the only thing. Certainly not any form of exercise. But there we were, on the road before the big hand had reached the 7, on our way to meet our fellow J Teamers.

We gathered at the Park from where the ride would begin, and cheered on the more, umm, experienced cyclists as they left for the 50km & 25km rides.  The 100km ride had started way earlier. We are supportive, but not that supportive.

We limbered up – ok, we ran on the spot in the sun ‘cos it was bloody freezing; we carbed up – chocolate brownies are a well known source of carbs; and we planned our strategy for the ride ahead. The strategy pretty much consisted of “Has everyone got their phones with them? Good.” And “Wherever possible, let’s avoid falling in the river.”

With our numbers on our shirts (I know, we could easily have been mistaken for professional athletes) we decided, as a team, to start at the back of the pack, so that we wouldn’t disadvantage the other riders who perhaps hadn’t trained as diligently as the J Team.

And we were off!

Personally I felt it was a little unkind of the organisers to plan a route that took us past several cafes, all practically waving coffee and bagels as we rode past. But we had to remain single-minded in our effort to complete the course and prove to the naysayers (that’d be us) that we could do it.

The route was largely flat, thank God, but there were a couple of points at which we needed to bring out the big guns – i.e. use the gears.  As part of my intense cycling preparation, I had asked The Councillor for a quick lesson in how to use the gears. All 21 of them. Seriously, a 747 couldn’t have as many options as my pretty bike apparently has.

Unfortunately for Janey, she hadn’t put in quite as much preparation as me, and despite having a bike that was far more professional than mine (but not nearly as pretty), she had no clue about changing gears.  Although some might (unkindly) say you’d be lucky to roll a tennis ball down the “hills” on the course, they did provide some variety to the ride. And some sweat to prove we’d ridden like proper athletes.

About 1km from the finish line, we actually had to ride ON THE ROAD! LIKE PROPER CYCLISTS.  We felt so professional waiting at the lights with the rest of the traffic. Of course, proper cyclists don’t have a “comfort seat” the size of a laz-y-boy, but more fool them.

As we headed towards the finish line, we knew that some members of the J Team (alright, the children) had finished. Obviously Kate, Janey and I had orchestrated this so that the kids would be back in time to form an honour guard as we rode down the final 200 metres.  And God love ‘em, there they were waving their MS balloons and eating the last of the chocolate brownies.

But we did it. Each member of the J Team finished. And not one of us came last.  Yes, there were challenges along the way.

  • Taking your water bottle out of its holder whilst riding, and not veering into oncoming cyclists, is trickier than it sounds.
  • Pedals don’t work when the chain thingy has slipped off the cog thingy.
  • It’s surprisingly hard to ride in between two witches hats. I don’t care if they’re a house-width apart – it’s hard.
  • Being overtaken by a kid on a bike with wheels the size of a bread & butter plate is embarrassing.

Still, if Janey has to suck up MS, the rest of us were more than happy to suck up a little humiliation and the occasional brush with death.

Onya J Team!

5 members of the crack J Team

 

I went to a theme park, and this is what I saw…

By Thursday, June 23, 2011 6 Family No tags Permalink 0

If there’s one thing I hate more than misplaced apostrophes, it’s theme parks.  I know there are fully-grown humans who reckon theme parks rock, but that is not something I can comprehend.

I am only speaking for myself here, but I do believe theme parks are a special kind of torture.

And I say this as I sit in my own torture chamber – Dreamworld, on the Gold Coast.  (Just as an aside – this is a marketing ploy. It’s so NOT on the Gold Coast. If it was at the Goldie, there would be seagulls tormenting me – not just pigeons and ibis. Seriously, the hits start the minute you walk in. Maybe you’ve heard about my “issue” with feathered creatures?)

Not a good sign

Anyway, in a moment of weakness I offered (honestly, I must have forgotten to take my medication that day) to take Joe, 11 to Dreamworld. This was due, in part, to the fact that I needed to come up with something that would tempt him a) out of bed, and b) away from the xbox (yes, I am that parent). Also, his school holidays started approximately a year and a half before his sister’s – one of the perks of paying a bizillion dollars a year in fees for his fancy schmancy school.

Anyway, despite the fact that he didn’t seem in the slightest bit bored after 5 days of total inactivity (again, yes, I am that mother), I asked if he’d like to go to Dreamworld. He had 2 weeks left on his “Summer of Fun” unlimited visits pass, and given that his unlimited visits amounted to 1 so far, I figured he may as well get his money’s worth. Wait – my money’s worth.

Anyway, let’s be clear. I offered to take him. My offer began and pretty much ended there. God love him – he didn’t for a minute think that I would be going on any of the rides. Obviously I use the term “rides” loosely. I would rather staple my eyelids to the back of my head than plunge to the ground in a small cage from a kilometre-high tower.

Thankfully, two of Joe’s friends also have “Summer of Fun” passes that expire in a couple of weeks, so Joe won’t be alone on the various pieces of terrifying theme park infrastructure.

We have also been joined by my lovely friend Emily and her other half, who are amongst that odd subsection of the adult community that enjoys theme parks. Emily is nursing a monumental hangover, and has so far put away a medium McChicken Meal and a hot dog (this comes on top of an emergency cheeseburger breakfast). You might think she’d be assuming the please-kill-me-now-lying-back-in-a-chair position. But you’d be wrong. She’s working her way through all the rides as though she’s been on a B12 bender. Still, she’s only 23 so she has those freakish, gen-Y powers of recuperation.

We decided to stop at McDonalds en route to avoid wasting valuable time once we were here on pesky tasks like eating lunch.  This meant that once we arrived, the boys took off as though they had little jet engines attached to their sneakers.  I took the opportunity to embarrass the crap out of them by calling out for them, by name, from some distance away, to tell them to put their hats on. Joe looked as though he had died a thousand deaths. Totally worth it.

My plan was to establish base camp at one of the café tables located outside the “Marketplace Food Hall”. (As an aside, I haven’t been in there, but I suspect there’s not a whole lot of organic swede being sold in there.)

Base Camp

Anyway, after a few minutes of stalking (for the love of God people, how long does it take to eat a churro?), I settled down at a table, unpacked my various devices (just the essentials – macbook, iphone, kindle) and the New Idea, and surveyed the scene.

Turns out I am so inappropriately dressed, I really have no business being here. I realise wearing pearls may have been overdressing slightly, but apparently I should be wearing any combination of the following:

  • Cut-off, arse-freezing Daisy Dukes
  • Flannie, obviously
  • Jeggings. With a flannie
  • Sequinned sneakers
  • Hoodie (with hood up)
  • T-shirt with witty slogan like “If found, please return to pub” with arrow pointing to wearer’s head.
  • Turban (there are a LOT of Indian people here).

Despite my discomfort, I have made some effort to throw myself into the theme park experience. I ate a churro. Actually I ate 2. Because they are awesome.   I paid about $7.50 for a coke. See, totally embracing it.

Churros should be a food group

So, having spent the past 3 hours on what can only be described as anthropological research, here are my musings:

I have wondered what the collective is for a group of 15 year old girls in Daisy Dukes and teeny tiny shoulder bags (how do you even fit tampons in there girls?).

  • I have wondered whether theme park management thinks that painting and decorating the dunny stalls to resemble wild west outhouses will make us believe we are really cowboys.
  • I have wondered why people push 5 year olds in strollers.
  • I have looked at people eating slushies bigger than their heads and wondered what flavour “blue” is.
  • I have wondered whether the kids at the table next to me are old enough to truly understand the embarrassment that comes with having to eat the cheese sandwiches, sliced watermelon and yoghurt that their parents have packed.

But there is something I don’t need to wonder at all.  I don’t need to wonder if my son has had a good time.  Because his smile says yes, and that’s all that matters.

 

 

 

 

Is there any such thing as “appropriate” any more?

By Saturday, June 4, 2011 5 Uncategorized No tags Permalink 0

There's appropriate, and then there's this...

So about a week ago I picked up my sister Kate from the airport on her return from a quick trip to Sydney.  (My family has a thing about picking up people from the airport. We have to do it. It’s a sickness. The Councillor doesn’t get it at all. He figures that’s why taxis and the AirTrain were invented.  We ignore him.)

Anyway, my sisters and I all like flying, and are pretty good travellers. This is largely to do with the fact that sitting on a plane is one of the few times when it is perfectly acceptable to read Who Magazine and drink Diet Coke without feeling as though we should be doing the ironing (me) or writing a best-seller (Kate).  So I was surprised to find that Kate was a stabby ball of crankiness when I retrieved her from the airport footpath.

I wasn’t surprised, however, to discover the cause of her stabbiness. Three words:

Carry on baggage.

Not Kate’s hand luggage.  Obviously. Because like every member of our family we take the rules of air travel very seriously, and she was only carrying a handbag and laptop satchel.

No, the reason for Kate’s crap demeanour was that every square centimetre of the overhead locker was occupied by green bags (of the recyclable grocery variety), enormous stripey bags (like those seen on Border Security being inspected by Customs Agent Brett) and a guitar.

This meant two things.  First, it was apparent that some of Kate’s fellow passengers were breaching the hand luggage guidelines clearly listed on the Jetstar website. Seriously, you could comfortably fit a small hatchback in one of those stripey bags. And unless someone has invented a fold-out guitar, there’s no way it could fit in that metal luggage measuring thingy at the departure gate.

And then there was the fact that Kate had to venture well beyond her row to find space in an overhead locker for her appropriately-sized satchel. By the time she was able to wedge her bag between a vast fake flower arrangement and a David Jones bag carrying what appeared to be a commercial-sized espresso machine, she was so far down the aisle she found herself fighting against the tide of incoming passengers to get back to seat 29A.

I’m totally with Kate on this one.  Seriously, what is it about “appropriate” that people don’t get?

NOT carry on baggage

Kate’s experience with inappropriate hand luggage got me thinking about other examples of “inappropriate”.

Cabin baggage isn’t the only issue on which levels of appropriateness are “fluid”. Remember when getting on a plane meant dressing up? At least a bit? At least wearing shoes? I know there’s no longer a whole lot of romance about air travel (the names “Virgin” and “Tiger” don’t help), but there was a time, not too long ago, when people put some thought into their travel wardrobe. I don’t necessarily mean stepping off a plane looking like the Queen on a state visit, but would it kill the travelling public to wear a nice ironed shirt? Maybe a stylish twinset? Think Michelle Obama.  And ok, my Dad and air travel are a aneurism-inducing combination, but he wouldn’t consider getting on a plane in less than chinos and a navy reefer jacket. I don’t think blokes necessarily need to wear a jacket, but if you’re going to wear a singlet, it should be worn as underwear. And by that I don’t mean “underwear as outerwear”. PUT A SHIRT ON. And doing it up would be awesome.

When flying, pretend you're on Air Force One

It’s not just air travel where I fear standards and appropriateness have gone into decline.

We went to the races two weeks ago. It was a huge deal, this particular race meeting. The Councillor and I were guests of the Brisbane Racing Club to see a horse called “Black Caviar” which was (and still is) considered the best racehorse in the world.

There were records broken all over the place that day.  It was the biggest crowd in the history of the Brisbane Racing Club; Black Caviar won her 13th race out of 13 starts (so my $10 bet paid $10.10 – I am the last of the big punters) and thousands of 19 and 20 year old girls managed to wear so few clothes I feared for their wellbeing. Also, The Councillor kept getting distracted.

Seriously, it was all I could do to stop myself from calling out to these girls “for the love of God, put on a cardigan!” or run up to them with the spare pair of Voodoo pantihose I keep in my handbag.

As my sister Janey would say “It’s the races, not a nightclub”.

No "Fashions on the Field" sashes for these girls

I shall finish this post with my personal favourite example of inappropriate behaviour.

The Councillor and I once went to the movies – it was the old days, before we had kids. Anyway, like regular people we bought a bucket of popcorn the size of a shopping trolley and a couple of soft drinks that should, by rights, last about 3 months. We chose our seats, got comfy, changed seats (what, you don’t do that?), got comfy again, put our phones on mute (see? appropriate) and settled down to watch the shorts. (Because – derr – we were there in plenty of time).

Suddenly and without warning – ‘COS WE WERE IN A FREAKING CINEMA – our sense of smell was assaulted by the unmistakable aroma of a vindaloo.  A VINDALOO!! And you know how a curry is always better a day or two after it’s been cooked? Well, this one had been cooked with love at least three days earlier. I am pretty sure they hadn’t used a store-bought curry paste either – there had definitely been a mortar and pestle involved. It was the type of thing that Gary and George would have knocked up on Friday night’s Masterclass with the contestants knocking each other off their stools for a taste.

Appropriate cinema snacks

Less appropriate cinema snacks

They had it all – rice, raita in a little container, and naan. The only thing they didn’t have were the stable tables. If you looked up “inappropriate” in the dictionary, you’d find a picture of this couple having their vindaloo picnic in the back row of Cinema 2 at the Manly Cinemas.

What have you seen that has set off your “inappropriate” radar?