And Javed

Uber-woman Sarah Ulmer was in town for a quick visit. I popped in to see her at her parents' place. You may recall that I was at uni last year with Sarah's dad, Lyle Lovett. While I was visiting one of her sisters wandered in and looked confused when I was introduced as "a mutual friend of me and Dad".

Later Sarah's brother came home. He drifted into the kitchen, just behind where we were sitting. Lyle was busy organising dinner when the brother decided to tackle him. I was facing the kitchen and could hear the grunting and groaning - around the food? mercy! - and could see two heads occasionally bobbing up above the bench top. Lyle was struggling and begged his son to stop, but the onslaught was merciless. Sarah Ulmer was clearly not oblivious to the goings-on behind her but she just kept on chatting away, apparently unconcerned as the young buck savaged the pater familiaris.

No wonder she's such a warrior woman. They may be a farming family but it's the law of the jungle that rules in that house.

Words are all I have...

Jessie Mo was in a meeting with a lawyer but anxious to get out and email me. It seems this legal professional kept referring to the problem under discussion as 'a moveable beast'.

----------------------------

Sarah Ulmer sent me a rather torturously worded email she'd received:

"Availability of Minister X for the purposes of signing briefs: May I suggest that due to the volume of work that is currently going through the Minister’s office that if you require a response from the Minister before the end of the year an email from your General Manager to the Minister’s adviser would assist in prioritising your brief."

When she forwarded this little nightmare to me, she added at the top: "Am thinking about having the Minister sign her name alongside Elle McPherson's on my briefs."

Three sure-fire cures for a crappy day.

(1) Have The Antiquer tell you, "It doesn't matter where you're posted, I'll come & visit."

(2) Stop at a school crossing. As one cherub-faced schoolboy waits by the side of the road, his mate comes running up and flings his arm around his shoulders. They walk across the street, smiling and holding on to each other.

(3) Decide that you might as well polish off a bad day by calling in at the post office, expecting to be bludgeoned with bills. Find there's a parcel waiting for you. It's from Sarah Ulmer. It was a lovely little present but the best part? On the box she didn't write her real name above the return address, she wrote 'Sarah Ulmer'. That was enough to make me burst out laughing right there in the post office.

Isn't it great how things turn out?

Unforgettable

Sarah Ulmer left a comment on the post below asking how I figured out her dad was her dad. Well, that would be by his name, my dear.

The Ulmers have a fairly distinctive surname so when the tutor took the roll at the beginning of a tutorial (good grief!), I heard the name and made the connection.

I went up to him afterwards:

"Hello, Lyle Lovett! I'm Sarah Ulmer's friend hazelblackberry!"

"Oh, hello.....Er, by Sarah Ulmer, you mean my daughter Sarah Ulmer?"

Hey, at least he knows you fit in there somewhere.

The Ladies Treat Me Kindly

Something I've not quite been able to, ie refused, to get the hang of is predictive text when sending messages on the mobile phone. It drives Grumpy mad and he hates me texting in his presence as I carefully punch out each letter (with the appropriate punctuation, let's face it).

"Christ that's painful," he says, and he's not referring to his bunions.

So Sarah Ulmer texted me one evening to say that she was watching Big Brother against her will. I wanted to text back and say that just as we look back at the split of the Roman empire into the Eastern and Western empires as a sign of the imminent collapse of that civilisation, so future archaeologists and historians will sift through the debris of our culture and identify two groups of people: those who did and those who didn't watch Big Brother.

Apart from wondering just how much text my phone could handle, I knew that if Grumpy had to listen to that much button pushing, it might send him shrieking into the night, never to return.

Hang on. Hang on a minute. I could be on to something.....

Prithee, my dear, why are we here?

I complained, very impolitely*, to Jessie Mo and Sarah Ulmer about the Canberra phenomenon of people who know you seeing you out and about and not saying hello. Many is the day that after a busy weekend flitting here and there I would come into work to have someone approach me to tell me they'd seen me in my travels. But they would say it in a grim voice laced with judgement.

Or while I was out and about I'd see someone I know seeing me and just as our eyes met they'd turn away. It was strange and unsettling. I don't think I'm the kind of person who inspires excessive revulsion in others, nor do I think I'm especially paranoid - this has happened to other people I know!

So on Saturday afternoon I was trundling through Manuka when I heard a shriek and there was a kerfuffle and Sarah Ulmer came flying out of a cafe screaming, "I see you! I see you!" and gave me a big hug. The coffee drinkers in the little square stared at us (but only until we made eye contact with them).

I thought that was such a lovely and funny thing of her to do. I will miss her, but I hope being in Canberra brings her everything she desires.



*I may have been rude, but they were too polite to tell me so.

An answer at all times.

Sarah Ulmer found that even after her short break away from these fatal shores, upon her return home she was ultra sensitive to the rising inflection in what should be statements, not questions.

I mean: in what should be statements, not questions? It's an easy pattern of speech to fall into?

Whenever I was guilty of this heinous crime, Bloody Ern would shrug his shoulders, look at me and say, "I dunno. You're telling the story."

Fetlocks Ahoy!

The delightful Sarah Ulmer - "A day without bacon is a day wasted" - has returned from her adventures in The Argentine, where she chased wild ponies across the pampas, manes and locks flowing in glorious unison. Or something.

She'll be heading back to Canberra soon so my days of gossiping over coffee (or similar drink) at Gloria Jean's are numbered. I will be interviewing shortly for a replacement. Applications may be posted in the comments.

Emails from Shemales

(1) Regarding the photo of a young hazelblackberry:

From: The Burp
Sent: Thu, 23 Nov 2006 09:42
To: hazelblackberry
Subject: Please don't be offended but...

OMG LMAO

HA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA SNORT HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HAHA HAHA HA HA HA HA SNORT HA HA HAHA HAHA HA HA HA [etc, etc - Ed]

Hilarious!
Bloody camera in your hand....


(2) Regarding hazelblackberry's fickle work ethic:

From: Sarah Ulmer
Sent: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 12:53
To: hazelblackberry
Subject:

Wanna catch up? As your sucking up schedule allows of course.

The Other Mandela

I am planning a trip to Horseland with Sarah Ulmer. My boss is retiring and he owns trotters, so we're getting him a horse blanket as a farewell present. Apart from those teenage years spent obsessing over horse books, I don't know much about the nuts and bolts of horsing so I recruited an excited Sarah U to come with me.

"I'm always trying to get people to come to Horseland with me, " she cried. "I shan't sleep the night before!"

I fully expect her to roll up in jodhpurs, and possibly pawing at the ground.

She's very well groomed.

For the Mature Skin

Sarah Ulmer likes bacon.

She hails from good Kojonup farming stock so she's true to her carnivorous roots. Once we were eating brekky and my meal happened to be somewhat on the fibrous side. SU ran a critical eye over my plate and asked, "Are you a vegetarian?" I assured her that I wasn't and almost added that even if I was, I'd have made the switch immediately. Just for her.

So we had brekky today at a place in Freo - Roasted Coffee Bar - that serves sheets of bacon. Whole bed sets' worth. And I ate my fair share, I promise.

I was moaning on and on about the sunburn I'd managed to get on the weekend. It's at the stage where it's still tender but starting to itch. So I kind of have to massage my chest in place of scratching, which is possibly something you want to keep to a minimum in public. I added that the very morning of the day on which the burn took place I'd noticed how wrinkly my chest was becoming, and admonished myself to keep sun exposure to an osteo-preventing minimum.

Sarah Ulmer nodded sympathetically and then told me how the other day her brother had watched her frantically applying various lotions and unguents - which is a word ranking right up there with moist - to her face and had commented on what all the effort was for. She turned to him, face dripping with restorative and healing creams, and wailed, "Because I'm getting pimples and wrinkles at the same time!!!"

And that, my good friends, is what a mid-life crisis is really all about.

Love the One You're With

The other morning I met my friend Sarah Ulmer for breakfast. She has a course every Wednesday in Freo so it's quite convenient to hook up with her on my way to work. We had a lovely morning, as we always do.

Grumpy thinks I've got a bit of a girly-crush on Sarah Ulmer. "Sarah Ulmer said this, Sarah Ulmer did that," he says, mocking me in a disappointingly juvenile fashion.

Well, what can I say? A girl's got to have something...and it has been a while since I've seen Bette Midler.

Not Sally Robbins - Re/Deux

This morning I had a delicious and delightful breakfast with Sarah Ulmer.

She said something utterly amazing, that I never thought I'd hear from someone of my generation, "You know, I really don't feel the need to travel in order to broaden my horizons. I can do that in my head."

Good for her!

Of course, I also pointed out that my top 6 favourite people in the world (apart from Grumpy - because you're always tops, dahlink!) either barely or never set foot outside Australia.

I could have gone on to point out how much of Australia four of these favourites had seen compared to how little is seen by people who can't wait to jet off to London, but that's a whole other rant.

And, you know, it just wasn't a ranty kind of morning.

Not Sally Robbins

I am meeting a friend for a coffee tomorrow. Scarab has got me hooked on the bad juju of Gloria Jean's so I begged this friend to indulge me and meet me there for a chocolate-mint dairy drink infusion, with whipped cream on top.

She decided it would be good material for a self-deprecating blog.

Please check back here tomorrow for self-deprecation.