Vox Pop

I think i've noted several times on this blog before my love of all things vox pop.
Whenever I scan the newspaper, I like to look in the 'letters' section for people I know, and I actually used to work for someone who enjoyed penning those ranty "Disgruntled from Dingley" missives and sending them in .. so he could get a giggle at himself if they got published.

Other Weekend Supplement favourites include "The Two of Us", and "Your Time Starts Now".
I fantasise about the questions i'd be asked and how exactly would I answer them.

Of course, in my imagination, I am always delightfully engaging, witty, have my legs elegantly folded and am impeccably poised. I love this fictitious me, as I find the real version tends to stumble over her own lips, forgets her train of thought mid-sentence, and sometimes even mispronounces common words due to .. I don't know .. being a stumbly talker ? ... ?!?
I feel it acutely when talking with people .. i'm always "So, yeah, we were blurghgurging along and ( realising I just said blurghgurgling, I lose my train of thought and trail off into .. nothingness ... *blank* ).

Then there's a silence as the other person tries to work out "what the hell was THAT?!" and so I dribble some filler ( which is always dribble, with probably more odd words either mispronounced or out of context ) and dig that hole deeper.
It's probably why i'm crap at small talk .. unless I really know you , and we know the same people and common things, and even then I will still stumble, but I will feel less awkward about it.

Perhaps I have a form of verbal dyslexia ?
My mother confesses to having the same affliction, and mentioned it when we were talking about the boy's speech therapy once. She wondered if it was genetic.
I'd never thought of it like that before, because we are educated women, and we know the words and how to use and pronounce them .. they just sometimes come out jumbled...

So anyway, discrepancies aside, i'd like you to imagine me as a young Grace Kelly ( sigh! ) Because this is my blog, and if I want to be a young Grace Kelly just for a minute, then so be it !

Our roving reporter is the lovely Fairlie.
She flew all the way from Noo York to interview me - how special is that ?!


First it was "House & Baby", followed by the sequel "House & Baby - and then we were four".

Will this be a trilogy?

err... no.
For one, i'm 'not allowed' as AB has plans for the future that do not involve People-Movers .. plus he's one of 3 children and hated it.. ( I can imagine AB would have been perfectly happy as a single child actually - it's just who he is. )

But he loves our two and can't imagine life without them.
It would have been quite boring and self-indulgent now without them, i'm sure, and it sure has been nice to revisit the GOOD things from our own childhoods ( I am lovin' that twampoween, and bounce away madly wondering if I am losing any flab .. ha ha ha ! )

I also quite like knowing my little family is complete and that there's 'nobody missing' .. when making memories, having photographs done ( such as at Sovereign Hill ), and doing things.
No-one is missing out, no-one is absent from the mere fact of being unborn...

Secondly, i'm ready for the next stage of my life - I don't want to be stuck in a never-ending circle of baby .. I want to get out a bit more now, and do other things.
I know some people that just mother and mother and mother and mother .. but they are kind, unselfish giving gentle souls, and I think my patience dries up after a bit.

So two kidlets it is.

Two kidlets, a cat, and a husband.
That's more than enough for someone as scatterbrained as me to look after.


You were a Rotary Exchange student to the United States after you finished school.
How did that experience shape you?

I wonder if i've processed this one completely yet ?
You think I would have being over 20yrs ago, but I find i'm still reinventing the past perhaps ?

Basically, it was a fantastic experience ( one of my host mothers actually reads this blog, and I think her daughter-in-law, the wife of my host brother does too ), and I was very young and naive, and out of my depth... BUT, what a trip, and something I would have never had the opportunity to do otherwise.

I thought a lot about the exchange only recently after the experience of Tracey and her daughter Ashy, who went with Rotary to France. I realised after an email conversation with Tracey that I was using my Sales Spruiking Voice and had also fallen inadvertently into Rotary Exchange Student Mode ( which essentially, is selling yourself, your country, smiling a LOT, and hiding your real feelings if they did not match with the mask - really, I mean, we had a lecture before we left on how if you're homesick, to go and cry in a really hot shower so as not to make your host parents feel bad, and you could blame the steam )

Sadly, which tells you something of my homelife at the time, I never got homesick - I was too glad to be free, and living with families who obviously cared about each other and supported each other was a revelation.
Sure, I bet it really wasn't perfect, but in my eyes, I was mainly living my Brady Bunch dream ( minus all the kids and with more bathrooms )

But I digress .. through talking with Tracey, it made me confront that not everything was peaches and roses and recall some of the shittier things that happened - the girl that accused her host father of um, inappropriate behaviour, and the Malaysian Price that was sent home after being found with a firearm and other contraband ( apparently his dad had sent him over to either be rid of him, or straighten him out, I can't remember which ).

For the benefit of the host mother who reads here, i'd just like to add nothing awful ever happened to me outside the usual teen angst and self-discovery, which was ghastly enough alone, thankyouverymuch.
Gah, if only i'd had faith in who I was.
Alas .. tell it to every teen, I guess...

I think i'd only been in my new school for a month or two when I called my mum up and asked her to arrange for my (deferred ) University Studies to be changed. I'd enrolled in a Psych 101 class in my American High School and it opened up a whole new world for me I never knew existed. My country High School had a very basic curriculum, and the Careers Counselling was basically non-existant. There was nobody in my life doing anything that intrigued or fascinated me, and therefore no inspiration. My world was very closed, one commercial TV channel and the ABC. I knew nothing of the bigger picture, or how to get there, to branch out, discover, learn.
I didn't know who I wanted to be, and had no guidance.I went from a bachelor of Business ( Hospitality ) in NSW to a Bachelor of Arts ( Psychology/Sociology ) in Melbourne.

So from America, I went to Uni in Melbourne, met & lived with a girl who would later introduce me to my future husband, and therefore brought me to where I am today.
And that is a very fortunate place, so how can I not be glad ?


They're making "House & Baby - the movie".
Which actors will play the main characters?

OOOoOoooohhh .... it has to be the cast of The Incredibles !

AB's handsome mug, my awesome accent ( I wish .. I have a bit of a girly crush on Holly Hunter ), MC as Dash, and MC Jnr as the fire-evoking Jack-Jack.

Not that I think we're super or anything, but there's a bit of the Incredibles in all of us - remember they are just the suburban family, with excess paunch, frayed nerves, fears, fighting and insecurities. I love them. They're pretty much like us, and probably like your family too.
I quite like Pixar kid-flicks, and this one hits a soft-spot.

I wonder if I could get AB to wear a Mr Incredible costume for me ? Grrr, Tiger.


Salty or sweet?

salty, baby. All the way. I'm more Margarita than Fluffy Duck.


What prompted your first ever blog post?

this: http://house-n-baby.blogspot.com/2006/02/new-house-again.html

'BB' ( before blogs ) i'd kept websites - there was one detailing our past inner-city Shitty-to-Stunner worker's cottage renovation, and another covering the pregnancy and birth of the first child .. and a 3rd of the first child's first year in pictures and milestones.
I'd enjoyed making them a lot.

They were mainly for my enjoyment, but also so anyone ( including my mum, who was living in London back then ) to pop onto if they wanted an update or even cared .. rather than me filling in-boxes with pics of my kids, which, let's face it .. no-one thinks your kids are as cute as you do.
I didn't want to lose friends by bombarding them with my trivial navel-gazing, but I wanted to document so many things that were important to ME, my life, my navel.

I'd always kept a written diary before those websites, and I swear, with every new step technology takes, I gladly shirk off the skin of old and move with it. I love the web ( and it's much easier on my writing hand... typing, and inserting pics with a click of a button - oh, but my how I love it! )



What do you mean we have to wrap it up ?
I've got my Gwyneth Paltrow frock on and i'm clutching an award...

Thankyou for these questions Fairlie, it was interesting to explore questions asked by another, and these took some time to digest. I guess on the surface they might have looked easy, but I think I now have more empathy for those 'star' interviews..

It almost makes me feel sympathy for Tom Cruise.


*snort* !


( if you're one of the few that has not put their hand up to be interviewed and would like to be, let me know and i'll whip 5 up to delve into scratch your inner soul .. or simply to sate my blatant curiosity, as deemed... )