Brunching with the boys plus more...

What I'm grateful for Saturday January 30th:

1. BRUNCH WITH THE BOYS: I’m grateful for the invitation I received to ‘do brunch’ with my brother and his friends at Cafe Congo, Coogee this morning. Apparently they meet there most weekends. Let me introduce you to Mark, Paul, Andy & Andrew - yes they are different men. Two teachers, one uni lecturer and one sales rep. All nearing 30. All in board shorts and tee-shirts. One wearing pink underwear. Two wore baseball caps at the table –yes this did bother me – one cap emblazoned with ‘Budgie Smugglers’. It was interesting for me to just listen to the range of conversation - from how to motivate school students, the corruption of ‘bands’ in the education system (these have nothing to do with music apparently), sporting injuries, whether or not real men eat raisin toast, one fella’s inability to consume caffeine, another’s ability to drink two cans of Coke with breakfast and the various sponsors of Mr Pink Undies cricket team. There was informed discussion about the best mobile range / service available and the relocation of one lad from Lavender Bay to somewhere unknown. Amongst the chatter there was also some kind of code language about where they were going out tonight. I don’t know why? I mean, I wasn’t remotely interested in going with them. Three ‘brunchers’ had been to uni together and laughed about gently heckling Mark while presenting a lecture as an undergrad. The story was fantastic, however, mid-sentence Mark paused – the entire table stopped moving, eating, almost breathing and I waited with anticipation to hear the next line, imagining it must be a corker of an ending. Nothing. I looked at all four boys, and followed their gaze which followed a pink bikini walking by. As soon as the young lady past, the conversation continued, but unfortunately there was no corker of a punch line. But that’s fine, the whole experience was a pleasant way to kick-start the weekend. The conversation was as varied as the menu and it left me impressed at such inspired and inspiring young men. Next weekend I might go see who’s sitting at another table.
2. MANTRAS: I’m grateful for positive affirmations and I use them every day. The one I’ve lived by for the last 20 years is, ‘Don’t worry about failure, worry about the opportunities you miss when you don’t even try.’ [author unknown’] Today’s mantra was shared by my brother and is one he has on his wall at home and he used it to inspire his Year 12 class on day one of term one - ‘If not me, then who? If not now, then when?’ [a quick Google to find the author of this quote had everyone from Albert Einstein to Oprah to Winston Churchill – any ideas?]
3. MY COOKING: I’m not grateful for my cooking because it’s good, but because it was interesting enough to have the Melbourne Age run and article on today. If you missed it you can read it here: Hop, skip, jump into the pot.
4. SIMONE PERELE: Not only does she make attractive (and supportive) bras for the ‘fuller bust’, her change rooms have the right lighting to make us look beautiful and big enough curtains to cover the change-room doorway, to allow us to remain modest. There’s nothing worse than fighting with a change-room curtain that is too short on either side!
5. MY MUM: She’s wonderful, really she is. And you can read about her shortly, because as soon as I finish writing this blog I’m going to write a story about her, well us, for Marie Claire. I’ll let you know when it runs.