Katy Klein Has a Chat

So me and the boy are attempting Semi-Dry-July.  It’s the watered down version of Dry-July which was never going to happen.  Not because I am a raving alcoholic but I just really enjoy a nice glass of wine.

Dry-July is a challenge where you stop drinking for a month and are sponsored for your efforts with the money going to charity. Our version includes five nights where we can have a drink and a total of eight drinks for the month. Obviously no one will sponsor us for this and the money we save goes to our favourite charity – the mortgage. It got off to a shaky start as by the 5th we had both racked up two nights of drinking (largely due to the opened bottle of wine which we didn’t want to go off!).

So last night we went to see ‘MyLife in Ruins’ at The Como.  Nia Vardalos (last seen in My Big Fat Greek Wedding) was there to introduce the movie and she looked stunning.  She had all the charisma that she has on the screen. Waiting for the movie to start I normally would have had a glass of wine with the girls but thanks to Semi-Dry July I couldn’t, and I missed the social element of it. Walking past the bottle-O later I found myself looking longingly at a bottle of cheap plonk.

Substituting a delicious glass of juice (200% RDI of Vitamin C) in place of wine for dinner hasn’t quite cut it but I am hopeful that I can make it through the month. Even if it means avoiding walking past pubs and bottle shops.  On the bright side it is a really good excuse should you become pregnant and don’t want to tell people for a while.  But they may catch on as Semi-Dry-July leads into Stone-Cold-Sober-August and then TeeTotal-September……….

So on Saturday night we had tickets for Roller Derby.  Basically when I found out such a thing existed I wanted to be part of it.  I can remember seeing American roller derby action on TV and it looked awesome.  Contestants would form chains so they could hunt down and knock over their opponents and it is a full contact sport. Not surprisingly it’s a female league, possibly because a lot of female sports involve contact (even when they shouldn’t) and it’s the sort of contact that the Refs don’t always see.

So we ventured out to Resevoir, which for a South-Eastern suburbs girl is the other side of beyond, and almost got bogged in the car park. The venue is an old-school style roller rink and the punters just cram in. It’s obviously a big night out and why not?  The drinks are cheap, the sausages tasty and the smell of fried food reassuringly oily (it even follows you home). You do need to get in early to get a seat, otherwise it’s bring your own cushion for a rink seat and if really brave (read just plain silly) you can sit right up front and hope that none of the contestants crash into you.

Roller derby chicks are the sort of female role model I’d like my daughter to see, athletic, competitive and a whole range of shapes and sizes. But most importantly with co-ordinated outfits. I was really impressed that this was one female competitive sport that seemed to have no problem in drawing a crowd.  Even better there were cheer squads and they were male. The boys had even dressed up in their team colours and frocks.  One group had not only bought a blow up sheep, but also a blow up lady called Phoebe Bee who bizarrely had blow up antenna and wings and featured a bee striped tube top.  One does wonder who a bee-like blow up doll might cater too (desperate apiarists?).

The roller derby crowd itself deserves a mention because of the sheer number of costumes on display.  And surprisingly a lot of them seemed to be worn by the guys.  Three piece suits with a stetson, an ankle length leather coat with extra folds that billowed nicely as the chappie strode along and one guy with a staff (how often do you really need a staff in life unless you’re Gandalf?).  I am guessing that these were some of the local Uni students and I was pretty happy to see that conformity hadn’t crept into Uni life, in fact it looked a lot like my campus at any one lunchtime all that time ago…….

The first derby was between the Victorian Roller Derby League (VIDRL) and Geelong. The contestants had obviously put a lot of thought into not only their ensembles but also their names (Skate Bush, Mandytory Punishment and Misty Meaner to name a few) and their numbers ($4.00, 80%). The Geelong girls had the best outfits but VIDRL took the round on points.  It did take us some time to figure out how each bout was scored.  Finally the program told us that after the ‘Jammer’ makes it through the pack (made up of a ‘Pivot’ and ‘Blockers’) the first time, they then get a point for every player they pass from the opposing team.

The next derby saw VIDRL take on the Sun State Roller Girls (that’s right it’s a national league – how have I not heard about it?) and the competition became a lot more fierce.  Apparently these two teams had a bit of history. More blocks, more spills, more players in the sin bin.

Anyway, if you are stuck for something to do on a Saturday night than I can recommend Roller Derby especially for the stories you can tell your work mates on Monday morning (’You went where?’, ‘You saw what?’). At $15 it’s well worth the trip to Resevoir, just be careful in the car park.

Lats night a good friend and I attended Melbourne Craft Cartels’ Dye Pretty at the Newton Workers’ Club.  I was kind of expecting a small group of ladies with a penchant for crochet huddled in a corner. Instead we walked into a pub absolutely packed full of hip young things all grabbing at craft materials and working wonders with glue stick. 

Turns out it pays to get in early (doors open at 5.30 pm) to get the best craft picks and a seat.  As I qualified as a ’starving artist’ (AKA unemployed) it was a great value $4 (otherwise $8 for ‘workers’). I was handed my Go-Go bag with the mission for the night being to create an anti-swine flu face mask. 

I really felt like I was back in my Grade 6 art class which was awesome.  Unfortunately it turns out that I haven’t really got any more creative in my old age. I stuck pieces of gold paper, tinsel and a ballon hopefully onto my face mask which produced something that resembled a bedazzled boob.

It is worth a mention that the lemon, lime and bitters at the Worker’s Club is stupendous, somehow managing to taste like a Cuban mojito.  For those of you attempting Semi-Dry-July, this is fairly significant.  The urge to get myself a glass of vino as I sprinkled glitter was almost overpowering.

The vino would have probably helped me to gather the courage to take my nipple decorated face mask up on the catwalk for judging.  Seeing it in the cold light of day today however, it’s quite possible that Semi-Dry-July saved me from a certain level of embarrassment considering that there was some amazing talent on display.  The judges awarded the winning prize to a mask complete with floppy eared pig with (S)wine glass hand decoration which was my personal favourite.

Next time I am definitely going to think about what I will create before I start sticking anything on.  Heck I may even bring my own sewing basket. After all Semi-Dry-July will be over by then and winning a slab of beer would ease me back into Piss-Up-August quite nicely.

Check out www.craftcartel.com, for the next craft night and I may see you there. My goal next month is to make it up the catwalk with a craft item that doesn’t look like a 5-year-old made it, but should you see one that does, I’d really appreciate a sympathetic round of applause!

There is a lot going on at the moment.  Turns out that unemployment has very little to do with sitting on the couch watching day time TV, and a lot to do with running around like a headless chook and then wondering where the day has gone.  If I am this busy now, how did I manage when I had a full time job as well? Why in this day of time savers are there so many things that need our time?

Anyway, unemployment would be a lot worse if I had a moment to ponder it.  At the start I had a bunch of grand plans about what I would do with my “extra” time, but five weeks later this is my first entrée into a creative life. When you’re working you always think that you might do something a bit creative but you have the excuse that you’ve run out of vim after a day at work. Now I have the time but have to grapple with the fact that I’m possibly not any great competition for Hemingway.

So I just gave the chickens a drumstick bone from lunch.  Clucksy immediately ran off with the bone hanging out of her beak with Parma in hot pursuit.  Chickens seem to be one of your more cannibalistic pets.  Clucksy and Parma  enjoy a whole range of meats and fish but are particular about their fruit and vegie selection (they don’t enjoy avocadeo for instance).  They are fairly spoilt though and prefer any food item that comes with sauce. They’ve taken to begging for treats outside our back door and are fairly insistent about it.  I left the door open one day and the next time I turned around I had two chickens in my kitchen.  Previously they wouldn’t come in since they have issues walking on tiles but lino seems to be just fine for them.

We got Clucksy a little unexpectedly and free-of-charge. One night I took my bins out at my block of units.  On the way back I see a chicken.  If you ever want to make a spectacle in front of your neighbours I highly recommend running around after a squarking chicken. So Clucksy got popped into the backyard en route to an animal shelter.  I came home from work the following day to find mygarden in tatters but with one egg shining in the middle of it all.  So Clucksy moved in and has been hell bent on destruction ever since.

The only problem was that chickens are quite sociable as a whole and Clucksy became a little dependent on human interaction.  The moment she heard my footsteps inside she would start cackling for some company and she wouldn’t stop until I hung out with her.  I figured out that the only way to stop her carrying on was to play music.  Either she really liked music or she didn’t quite understand that music meant I was at home.

Which is why we had to go and get Parma from the chicken shop. Parma was cage reared so was a little slow in her chicken skills.  The first time she saw rain she cackled furiously for two hours straight.  She tried to eat dirt, didn’t understand kitchen scraps were delicious and didn’t know how to roost.  But she can now scratch as well as any other chicken.  Her pecking skills are a lot less accurate and she has a tendency to take out your finger when you feed her.  But her personality has improved no end.

I have to say that chickens are one of your more useful pets, at least you get something in return for all the feed that goes into them. They keep themselves nice, always wiping their beak after a meal and never expect you to throw them a ball endlessly.  The only down side is that they are the natural enemy of your garden patch.