Aussie Word of the Day, Unmentionables Edition

It's been a while since I did an "Aussie Word of the Day" post.  I think at this point I'm so accustomed to Aussie-isms that I now use them myself.  More than once have J and I been discussing the timing of completing a particular activity, and I've said, "no worries, I'll take care of it this arvo."

Now Zeke is getting into it.  He finally embraced riding his bike without training wheels about a month ago, and now rides at every opportunity he gets.  He's allowed to ride around parts of the neighborhood by himself, and many afternoons, J picks him up at school by riding his bike and carrying Zeke's bike with him (dude is seriously strong) so that he and Zeke can ride home together.

Apparently on one of these trips, J explained to Zeke that an Aussie-ism for bike is "treadly."  Zeke thought this was hysterical and now uses it at every chance he gets.  "Mama, Daddy and I are going out to ride our treadlies," followed by uncontrollable giggles.

He has taken to asking J how to say different things in Australian, and takes great pleasure in working his new vocabulary into conversation.

The other morning I was getting him and Josie ready for school, and brought down their clothes to put on while they watched the Sunny Side Up Show.  Zeke looked at his pile of clothes and said,
"time to put on my Reg Grundies!" 

I was definitely giggling hysterically along with him.

Aussie Word of the Day: Motivational edition

**Just a little warning -- this is kind of a long one.  You might want to go pee or top off your coffee before you start reading.**

Pull your finger out:  Aussie for "get on with it; stop wasting time."*  Shortened form of "pull your finger out of your ass" (apparently, having your finger up your ass interferes with efficiency).

It's been an insane week.  Things are really busy at work and I'm doing this big 90 day push to grow my Beachbody business that involves weekly webinars and daily check-ins with an accountability partner (who is awesome -- hi Ferreh!!) and I'm trying to plan Zeke's birthday party and make it fun without being too too much and this weekend is Yom Kippur and next weekend we're going to a wedding reception and I've got a presentation that I'm doing at a big statewide conference and holy shit.

On the plus side, ski season starts in less than a month, and opening day at Copper Mountain coincides with a flex day, so I've got that to look forward to.

So yesterday at 6:15 in the morning I was in my room doing a workout -- I was in the middle of a set of pushups, to be exact -- when J walked in.  This was a bit of a shock, considering that he had left for work an hour before. 

He's been having some problems with one of the guys on the job -- a former friend (Greg) who was promoted to foreman and immediately turned into a raging asshole at the first whiff of power.  Screaming, yelling, swearing at people -- just generally being incredibly abusive and awful to the guys on the job, and given that the construction industry is notorious for treating guys like dog shit, it's saying something that this guy's behavior really went above and beyond.  Everybody hated him, everybody was miserable.  J would tell him to back off and watch his mouth, and Greg tended to tone it down somewhat with J, but he was still a major douchebag. 

Apparently, a couple of days ago, it got really, really bad.  Guys were completely up in arms, an apprentice was so mad he was throwing things, and the entire job site was tense and miserable.  So J went to have a talk with the head of the company.  In a very calm and rational way, he explained what was going on and that it was negatively impacting everyone, that if the yelling and screaming was meant to be some kind of motivational tool, it was having the opposite effect, and that if something didn't change, guys would be leaving en masse.  The boss, being an asshole himself, kind of blew it off and insinuated that J was being a pussy and just couldn't take the heat.

This is pretty much par for the course.  This company is awful -- they don't pay shit, they provide no benefits, they insist guys work overtime and then mysteriously have "payroll problems" that cause the overtime pay to be absent from paychecks.  They suck.  And in a non-union state like Colorado, there's very little recourse.  It's a tough economy, everyone's grateful to have a job, so the companies make the guys eat shit because they can -- they hold all the cards. 

Fight the power, yo.

So yesterday morning, J made the decision -- probably not so smart in hindsight -- to try to have a calm discussion with Greg and explain why his behavior was inappropriate and counterproductive.  Greg responded by yelling and screaming at J, getting up in his face.  J responded, "Fuck you."  Greg said, "you just quit."  So J came home.

Notice how Greg immediately framed it (and subsequently put it in an email to the boss) that J had quit, rather than been fired?  So as to set up a factual dispute that would make it harder for J to file an unemployment claim? 

Evil fuckers.

Anyway, I'm literally mid-pushup when J walks into the room.  And I'm continuing to do pushups while trying to talk to J to figure out what happened.  This is difficult enough, but J was so angry and shaking and freaked out that it was hard for him to even form a sentence, so I told him to go downstairs and make some coffee and calm down and I'd be there to talk to him in a few minutes after I finished my workout.

We sat in the living room. 

"So what happened?"

"I tried to talk to him, but he kept getting in my face and I just snapped.  I just can't take being treated like that anymore."

"Well, I know you hate it there, and I don't want to pile on, but we can't afford for you to be out of work right now.  We're operating on a razor-thin margin as it is."

"I know.  I know.  I'll find another job."

"Is there any way you can go back?"

"I can't.  I just can't."  He was practically in tears.

I nodded, took a deep breath and got up and went into the next room.  I got a pad of paper and a pen out of a drawer and brought them to him.

"OK.  Then here's what you're going to do.  Write down the name of every single person you can think of that might be able to help you find a new job.  Call Steve [the guy who has done a bunch of work on our house] -- maybe he knows somebody or needs some electrical work on some of his jobs.  Vicki manages a bunch of properties -- call her.  Joe manages a company that does residential electrical stuff -- give him a call.  Guys you've worked with.  That friend of my dad's.  That placement guy that keeps calling you. I'll put the word out to everyone I know and also see if anyone needs any odd jobs done."  He started writing and I continued to rattle off names, which then went on the list.  "Now start calling, texting, and emailing.  We need the money, so start hustling.  Everything's going to be fine, but you need to focus.  Pull your finger out and get it done."

And he did.  He made some calls and sent some texts.  We got the kids up and took them to school, and then he drove me to work.  By the time he dropped me off, he had already gotten the names of some companies that were hiring and had an interview lined up.  I was giving him a pep talk and helping him plan his day, and he was feeling much better.

"This is awesome.  You're really amazing," he told me.

"You married the right woman," I agreed, and I gave him a kiss, got out of the car and went up to my building. 

Within an hour, 6 people in my office had responded to an email I sent out, telling me that they had electrical work they needed done but didn't know anyone reputable to call.  By 10 in the morning, he had another job interview lined up and side jobs to take him through the weekend.  And this morning, he's already had two calls from companies that got his name from friends of his.  So we're thinking that he'll have something solid lined up soon.

In the meantime, he and I have been texting back and forth.  I've been trying to give him little e-pep talks.  At one point, he texted me back:  "Tony Robbins called.  He wanted me to tell you to to back the fuck off."

I don't know.  I may be on to something.
________________________________________________
* I know this expression isn't used only by Aussies, but I never really heard it used in great abundance until I married J.  In the U.S., people tend to use the entire phrase, i.e., "pull your finger out of your ass."  But Aussies feel compelled to abbreviate and shorten everything, so I feel like "pull your finger out" is the Aussie-fied version.

Aussie word of the day: injury edition

Once again, I call my husband out on this blog, and I end up feeling like a putz.  Last time it was accusing him of being a pussy, and it turned out he had such a bad case of pneumonia they almost didn't let him leave the hospital because his oxygen levels were so low.  This time, I accuse him of being childish and saddling me with all of the family responsibilities, and it turns out he didn't come home the other night not because he was merely sore, as he told me, but because it turns out he has a cracked rib, a separated shoulder, and a sprained wrist.

"It was a pretty good stack, baby," he told me.

"Stack" is Aussie for "crash on the bike."

I separated my shoulder four years ago when I had a bad stack, and I couldn't really use my shoulder for a month.  At least J has some range of motion and isn't too terribly uncomfortable.

So when I leave for the airport in about 3 minutes to go spend the weekend with my family in Oregon (we're celebrating my aunt and uncle's 40th anniversary), he'll at least have the use of his arm when he's got the kids to himself for the next two days.

Have a nice weekend, honey!

Aussie word of the day: Chip off the old block edition

As I've noted many times, J has very little regard for his own personal safety when it comes to sports.  Every time he goes mountain biking, he comes back all scraped or cut up (or worse).  And it started at an early age.  He tells me these hilarious stories about the crazy shenanigans he and his brothers got into as kids, like when they would careen down huge hills on a skateboard dragging a board studded with nails behind them so that they would make sparks in the road.

So I've been bracing myself, waiting for Zeke to show similar levels of craziness.

We started the vacation by heading to my parents' house in DC for a couple of days.  J really wanted to take Zeke to the Natural History Museum, so we flew in on Friday, went to the museum on Saturday, and then drove down to the Outer Banks on Sunday.

In one of my parents' bedrooms, they still have the bunk beds that Josh and Sam slept in as kids.  Zeke was quite taken with these -- oh, the opportunities to climb up and down ladders!  to sit way up high in the room!

J and I were sitting in my parents' bedroom, chatting with them as Josie played on the bed.  Zeke was in the room with the bunk beds.  J decided to go in and check on him.

Thirty seconds later I heard a "Whoa! Wait!" then a *thunk-thunk-thunk*, then Zeke crying.

I went down the hall to see what happened.  Zeke had a scrape and a bump forming on his forehead.  He was a little shaken up, but otherwise fine.  In typical Aussie form, J said, "she'll be right!"

Apparently, Zeke had decided that it would be a good idea to jump off the top bunk into J's arms.  Except that he forgot to tell J he would be doing this.  And he also forgot about the ceiling fan, which was on, and which turned out to be just level with his forehead.

Oops.

The next day we were talking about how hard it is to try to protect your kids from harm, and the balance that has to be struck between keeping them safe and letting them out into the world to make mistakes.  We talked about Emma (who is doing super-great - more on that in another post), and how scary it would be to be hit by a car, or to see your kid be hit by a car.

J piped up, "I've been hit by a car."

"Really?" my parents said.

"Six times, actually.  While riding my bike.  Well, technically, one was a bus, so five times."

It explains a lot, actually.

Aussie word of the day: embracing the criminal ancestry

Today is Jason's birthday, so this post is for him.  Happy birthday, honey!

So technically, this isn't a true Aussie word of the day post because I'm not translating Aussie-speak or highlighting one of Jason's uniquely Australian expressions.

It's more of a marvel at how for American women, the Australian accent is apparently the ultimate impetus to cast one's morals and one's panties by the wayside.

For as long as I've known Jason, American women have thrown themselves at him shamelessly, even when they knew he was with me, even when they knew he was married with kids.

About six Novembers ago when we were dating, he had been in Australia and came back to the States to live with me again.  We met up at the airport in Atlanta and immediately got on a flight to New Hampshire to go spend Thanksgiving with my family.  We hadn't seen each other in 2 or 3 months and spent the flight cuddling and shmooping all over each other.  We were very obviously together.

But that didn't stop the cute 20-something flight attendant from falling all over herself to get him drinks and snacks, or from slipping him her phone number as we got off the plane.

Ladies working the grocery store checkout line get all giggly and school-girl-ish when he talks to them, even when they're obviously on the other side of 50.  One woman who was clearly a grandmother said, "honey, you better stop talking and get out of here before I fall in love with you."

He even had a lesbian ask him to donate sperm so she could have his child.

When women I meet find out I'm married to an Australian, they invariably start cooing and ask me if I just melt for the accent.

What's funny is that I really don't.  I love Australians, and I love Jason, but I actually find the accent kind of nasally and grating.  I don't even really hear it when he talks, except when he's playing it up for effect.

(Now if he were a Scot, oof, forget about it...*fans self*)

The attention he gets from other women doesn't bother me.  I'm not the jealous type, and I know he loves me and wouldn't cheat on me.  I find it funny, and the brazenness is a bit astounding, but I don't get upset.

Plus, his way of dealing with it is often hilarious.

There's a woman at his work who has been super nice to him and who asked him if he would do some wiring at her house.  He'll generally jump at the opportunity to do side-work as a way of earning some extra cash, so he told her he would.  Then a few days ago, she started bringing him smoothies and getting kind of flirty.

Mind you, she's in her 50s.  And she knows he's married and has children.  I told him that maybe she got optimistic when she heard his wife is older than he is.

Then she invited him to join him at her lake house, which is in another state.

Being Jason, he couldn't just say, thanks but no thanks, I doubt my wife would approve.

He had to add that he can't leave the state.

When she asked why not, he told her he's a registered sex offender.

She hasn't bothered him since.

Aussie Word of the Day: blasphemy edition

Australians tend to come up with highly descriptive expressions for their likes and dislikes.  They tend to be a bit vulgar, and also, somewhat ironically, to invoke the deity.

I've gotten used to it after living with Jason for 6 years, so I tend not to react much when I make him a favorite meal and he takes a bite and exclaims, "aw, baby!  It's like an angel pissed on my tonsils!"

In case you were confused, that means he likes it.

And again, I hear it so often, it usually doesn't faze me much.  But I'm not completely made of stone, people.

The other day when we went grocery shopping, Jason surreptitiously slipped a package of chocolate-chip cookie dough into the cart.  Later, when we were making dinner, he decided he needed a preprandial snack  and busted out the cookie dough.  I'm still doing WeightWatchers, so I limited myself to a single bite.  Jason offered some to his brother, Simon, who was unfamiliar with the practice of eating raw cookie dough.

"Aw, it's the best, mate."

"Yeah?" said Simon, quizzically.

"Definitely.  It's awesome.  It's what God's dog shit would taste like."

It's a good thing I wasn't drinking anything when he said that, or I would have done a total spit-take.

I still haven't been able to stop giggling when I think about it, or to get out of my head the image of a large bearded man in a white robe walking a dog that poops cookie dough.

Aussie Word of the Day: Let's call the whole thing off, or, my life as a Gershwin song

The Accent Wars are beginning in earnest.

You will recall that I recently was taken aback, and a bit freaked out, when Zeke used Jason's Aussie pronunciation of the word "weird," so that it sounded like "weeeeed." And his "dog" sounds like "doog" and "car" is "caaah."

Jason 3, Wendy 0.

But as I am the one who does most of the reading of stories to the monkeys, I'm starting to gain ground.

Zeke has this board book about life on the farm (and I love how it's called "My First Farm Board Book," as if there are sure to be other farm board books in one's future). It's got lots of pictures of everything from farm animals to tractors and tools to different kinds of produce. There's a whole page with pictures of lettuce and strawberries and apples and peppers and other fruits and veggies, in varying amounts, so that in addition to learning the names of the various foods, kids can work on their counting skills as well.

So from this book (because God knows he would never actually eat a vegetable*), Zeke has learned what a tomato is, and, more importantly, that the word is pronounced "to-MAY-toe."

The other night, Zeke was jumping around on the couch (naked, natch), when he spied his farm book on the shelf and decided he needed to read it RIGHT NOW. So he went and grabbed it and took it over to Jason, and they proceeded to go through the pictures, naming and counting and having a good time.

I was reading a magazine and not paying much attention (except to get a face-full of naked toddler ass when Zeke felt the need to crawl over me to go hug Jason's brother, who is visiting for a couple of weeks, before returning to Jason and the farm book). Then I heard this hilarious exchange:

Zeke: Daddy, what's that?

Jason: Those are to-MAH-toes.

Zeke: (laughing hysterically) Not to-MAH-toes! To-MAY-toes! They're to-MAY-toes, Daddy!

Jason: To-MAH-toes.

Zeke: TO-MAY-TOES! Hahahaha! Daddy's silly!

Indeed, son.  Indeed.  Come back from the Dark Side...

___________________

*Yeah, yeah, I know that tomatoes are technically fruits, but to Zeke, they are grouped with foods like broccoli and green beans, i.e., the kind he won't eat.

Aussie word of the day: lunch edition

Anyone who knows Jason knows that the boy has an appetite unlike anything most of us have encountered in nature, outside of maybe a ravenous goat. He's a pleasure to cook for, as many of our friends have discovered, because he likes just about everything, is effusive in his praise of a good meal, and goes back for seconds and thirds, plus will relieve you of any leftovers you're looking to clear out of your fridge.

I'll put some effort into trying out a new recipe, and he'll have a bite, get a look of bliss on his face, and exclaim, "baby, this is top tucker!!"*

The only difficulty I have, in addition to fights about leftovers, is that his palate is seriously defective. One manifestation of this is his tendency to slather every single thing he eats with some sort of condiment or sauce, be it chili sauce (such as Sriracha on all forms of pasta), salad dressing (some thousand island on a piece of pizza, perhaps), or anything else he can find.

Another manifestation is the sandwich combinations he comes up with. Australians, apparently, will put anything between two pieces of bread.

He called me this morning for our daily 11:20 chat.

"G'day, love."

"Hi, sweetie. How's everything?"

"Fantastic, now that I'm getting ready to sit down for smoke-o. Got a bunch a' sangers* lined up."

"Oh, yeah? What's on the menu?"

"Tuna, cheese, onions soaked in balsamic vinegar, pineapple and mayo."

"I'm sorry, did you just say 'tuna with onions, balsamic vinegar, pineapple and mayo?'"

"Yep."

I hate it when people are all, "EWW, GROSS!!" at other people's food choices. So I just said, "Well, uh ... have a lovely meal."

But, seriously, people. EWWW, GROOOSS!

____________________

*Tucker = Aussie for "food." For full effect, hold your nose and pronounce it thusly: /TAH-kah/

Sanger = "sandwich." /SANG-ah/

Aussie word of the day: toddler edition

People ask me all the time what kind of accent Zeke has, as in, is he picking up any of Jason's Australian accent. And most of the time it's hard to discern any real accent because he's still learning pronunciation. I don't doubt that eventually he'll sound American, but be able to put the Aussie accent later in life when he's trying to pick up chicks.*

So far, I haven't noticed much of an accent, except for early on in his pronunciation of "water" (he used to say "woh-tah," like Jason does, but now has flattened out the "a" and sounds American). I have noticed that when we read Go, Dog. Go! -- sometimes I'll have him "read" the first couple of pages ("Dog." "Big dog. Little dog." "Big dogs and little dogs. Black and white dogs.") -- he says "dog" almost like there's a second "o" in there ("doog"), which is kind of how Jason pronounces it.

Then last night, we were reading Leonardo the Terrible Monster for the 70 millionth time. And we got to the part about how Leonardo doesn't have the benefit, scariness-wise, of being just plain weird, like Hector.

Zeke was doing his "what's this?" "what's that?" thing where he points to different pictures or images in the book and asks rapid-fire questions about them (even though he knows the answers). He pointed to Hector, a very silly-looking monster with 3 eyes and a huge goofy top hat and a tail-thingy that also kind of looks like an arm, and said, "what's that?"

"That's Hector," I said.

"He's weeeeeeeeed," Zeke exclaimed.

I had a minute of panic.

Did he just say Hector has weed? I mean, I don't doubt it, but how the fuck does he know what weed is? WHO'S TEACHING MY KID ABOUT DRUGS??

Then I thought about it and realized that he was using Jason's hyper-Aussie-fied pronunciation of the word "weird."

Big exhale.

__________

*American girls dig the Aussie accent, for reasons I will never understand. I think it sounds all nasal-y and kind of grating, but I can't even tell you how often women have practically flung their panties at Jason when he started to talk, that's how much it happens. Now, give me a good Scots accent, and my toes definitely start to curl. But I digress.

Aussie word of the day: sick-bed edition

Jason is still sick. Very, very sick. Like, can barely breathe or stand up and is still having massive coughing fits in which he coughs up blood kind of sick.

In Aussie-speak, he's crook, mate.

Saturday or Sunday night (they're all running together at this point), I was downstairs in my bedroom, futzing around on the computer. Jason was feeling somewhat human and was up in the kitchen giving Zeke some dinner.

All of a sudden, I heard Zeke yelling, "Daddy! DADDY! Wake up!! Wake up, Daddy!"

And then I heard Jason moaning.

"DADDY WAKE UP!!"

Something's not right, I thought to myself.

I sprinted up the stairs to find Jason passed out cold on the floor. He came to a few seconds later.

"What happened?? Are you OK?"

"I don't know. I was standing at the sink and then I was on the floor and I heard Zeke yelling at me to wake up. I must have passed out."

"Jesus Christ. I told you to take it easy. Get into bed now, please."

It turns out his pneumonia is viral, not bacterial, meaning it doesn't respond to antibiotics. So instead of being better within 5 days or so, as the ER doctor predicted, it looks like he's going to be out for at least another week and a half. Another week and a half of him feeling like shit, not being able to breathe, not being able to do anything.

I was telling my mom about it this morning.

"Poor thing!" she lamented.

"Yeah, which one?" I asked.

"You, of course."

I'm trying really hard to keep it together for everyone. The kids are diapered and fed and in laundered clothes, and I'm doing my best to keep the house from looking like the "before" part of an episode of Clean House. This too shall pass, I guess.

In the meantime, happy Australia Day, everyone!

Aussie word of the day: fake-out edition

My brother Sam, who finds Jason's linguistic machinations hilarious, recently heard someone exclaim "cheese and rice," and assumed that the person was Australian and was using rhyming slang in place of "Jesus Christ!"*

For the uninitiated, rhyming slang involves using replacing a word with other words, with the last word rhyming with the word it's intended to replace, e.g., "cheese and kisses" for "missus," "frog and toad" for "road," "Pat Malone" for "alone," etc. It gets even more convoluted when the last word (i.e., the rhyming one) is left off altogether, like when "septic tank" is used to refer to an American ("Yank"), but "tank" is omitted and "septic" is abbreviated to "seppo."

Have I mentioned that Aussies are a little nuts?

Anyway.

In Sam's case, he was right. The person was undoubtedly either Aussie (or maybe British), and was using "cheese and rice" as a sub for "Jesus Christ."

But sometimes Jason will use an expression that sounds to me like it should be part of a rhyming combination, but actually isn't, so I'll sit there racking my brain trying to figure out what he's trying to say and what's supposed to rhyme with what.

My favorite example is "she'll be apples," which means "everything will be OK." As in, "Don't worry about the party, love. We'll get what we need from the store and I'll watch the kids while you cook, and everything will get done in time. She'll be apples!"

The first time I heard this phrase, I assumed that "apples" was part of a rhyming combination, so I was sitting there with my brow furrowed and smoke coming out of my ears, trying to be all clever and figure it out, as I thought to myself, "apples and pears? what rhymes with pears? apples and something else??"

And Jason saw the confused look on my face and asked, "what's up?"

"Apples and pears?"

"What?"

"What goes with apples?"

"What are you talking about?"

"What's 'apples'? You said, 'she'll be apples.'"

He laughed and explained what it meant.

"Oh, OK. You're not just messing with me?"

"Fair dinkum, baby, I wouldn't do that!"

*sigh*

___________

*Incidentally, I did some research and discovered that the Cockney rhyming slang for "jew" is "five and two." But Jason said he'd never heard this, so it must be a Brits-only kind of thing.

Aussie word of the day: food storage edition

I've become so immersed in my husband's Aussie-speak that I'm beginning to use it myself, to the point that today, I couldn't remember the word "cooler," i.e., the thing you put sandwiches and drinks in when you go on a picnic or to the beach.

For example, like everyone in Australia, we have an electric kettle for boiling water.  They drink lots of tea there.  Only they don't call it a kettle -- it's a "jug," as in "Darl,* would you be a dear and put the jug on for a cuppa**?"  "Jug" is also used to refer to any container in which liquids are stored.  And now I never say "turn on the kettle" or "boil some water."  I always say "put the jug on."

I need to do a Target run today, and I was making a shopping list.  Jason needs a couple of things for his job up in Vail, and I was planning on picking them up for him.  Specifically, he wants a big thermos to keep drinking water in, and a little cooler for packing his lunch.  So I wrote:

children's motrin

note pad with magnet for fridge

bananas

ketchup

strawberries

blueberries

Special K

water jug

esky

First, note that I wrote "water jug" rather than "thermos."  Second, you're probably asking yourself, "what the hell is an 'esky'?"

"Esky," which is short for "Eskimo,"*** is the Australian slang word for "cooler."  And as I was writing out the list, not only did I instinctively write "esky," but when I tried to remember the American word, it took me a good 20 seconds of thinking hard to come up with it.

I think I'm becoming indoctrinated.

________________

*   darl = short for "darling."  Sounds like "doll," but with an "r" thrown in.

** cuppa = cup of tea

*** as I have explained previously, Aussies abbreviate everything.

Aussie Word of the Day: Unemployment Edition

Aussies tend to abbreviate everything. No frequently used word remains intact for long. The two main forms of diminution are by shortening the word and then tacking "-ie" or "-o" on the end. Thus, "afternoon" becomes "arvo." "Petrol" becomes "pettie." "Beverage" becomes "bevvie." Jason's brother Dean becomes "Dean-o." "Sunglasses" becomes "sunnies."

My favorite of these is "smoke-o," short for "smoke break."* Smoke-o falls at about 11 in the morning, between breakfast and lunch. For those that don't smoke, it can be used for morning tea or a snack. When Jason was working, he would call me every day during smoke-o to say hello. In fact, he set an alarm on his watch to remind himself.

This morning Jason and I went for a surf after dropping Zeke off at daycare. There's a nice swell coming in from the northwest, so we decided to head up north and hit one of our favorite breaks. The waves were nice and clean, about 3-4 feet, with an offshore breeze. There was a good 5-10 minutes in between sets, so we tended to bob around on our boards waiting for the waves to come.

A side view of the wave

During one of the lulls, I looked out at the waves just in time to see, about 50 yards away from me, a dolphin jump out of the water and spin around before diving back in. There was a huge pod swimming and playing, and the younger ones were showing off to each other, flying out of the water and flipping around. Then out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a giant turtle surfacing not to far from where I was sitting. He poked his head up, looked at me for a couple of seconds, and then went back under and swam away.

There's something so magical about being out in the ocean and encountering beautiful sea creatures willing to share their habitat. And it was a gorgeous day, sunny, not too hot, not too cool, blue skies. I may not love living in Hawaii, but on days like today, it's hard to beat. There
are certainly worse places to be unemployed (or under-employed).

So there we were, enjoying the day. I caught a bunch of really great waves, including one that was about as perfect a ride as I've ever been able to produce. As I was paddling back out to the line-up, I heard Jason's watch beep.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Smoke-o!" Jason laughed.

"Well, thank God. I certainly need a break from all this...perfection."

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*For full Aussie effect, say the word with as nasal a voice as possible, and pronounce it "SMAU-kau."

Aussie word of the day: rhyming slang edition

This latest edition of the Aussie Word of the Day is inspired by the faux pas I wrote about yesterday, in which I insulted my husband's efforts to be sweet to me.

In terms of the etymology, my understanding is that rhyming slang derives from Australia's English roots, specifically Cockney rhyming slang, in which two or more words rhyme with the intended word. Apparently, it was a way for people to speak in code so that authorities would not understand what they were saying.

So if Jason had been really pissed off at me, an exchange with a buddy of his might have sounded something like this:

"G'day, Steve-o! I'm headin' down the frog-and-toad to the rub-a-dub-dub. Care to join me for a bevvy or two? I'm having a bit of a domestic with the trouble-and-strife and I think it would be good to get out of the house for a bit."

Translation: "Hi, Steve. I'm going down the road to the pub. Would you like to join me for a drink or two? I'm in a fight with the wife and I think it would be good to get out of the house for a bit."

On the other hand, once we made up, he might say something like this:

"When I was traveling, I was lonely for the old cheese-and-kisses. It's so boring to be all on me Pat Malone."

Translation: "When I was traveling, I was lonely for my missus. It's so boring to be all alone."

And yes, my husband really does talk like this.

Aussie word of the day: houso

I speak Australian. And for real, not like those Foster's ads. After being with an Aussie for 4 1/2 years, I know rhyming slang, regular slang, alternate usages, etc. So I've decided to spread the wealth.

houso \HOW-zo\ (for true Aussie effect, hold your nose while you say it), noun: someone who lives in public housing; the Aussie equivalent of calling someone "white trash" or "redneck."

"I'm not so sure about that little wifebeater ["singlet" or "singy" in Australian]. Zeke looks like a baby houso."