The Household ventured into the city yesterday to see Titans Of The Ice Age at the IMAX theatre. Sprog 1 was stoked. She still remembers trying to catch 3D fish there as a toddler. And Sprog 2 has finally agreed to wear 3D glasses to 3D movies, which makes them way more enjoyable than the blurry affairs she previously endured.
Meanwhile, I was fascinated to see what Sid The Sloth actually looked like and to learn his fossilised poo still smells when you crack it open 12,000 years later.
Afterwards, we had lunch in Chinatown, test-drove the Darling Harbour playground, then divided and conquered. I did the grocery shopping while Husband and the Sprogs went to Art Express at the Art Gallery of NSW.
And a good time was had by all … especially after I downed a can of sugar-free V (I’m still energy minus from my cold).
A year ago, I was somewhere vastly different and way less fun, overhearing discussions of lives far less ordinary. I wrote about it in a blog called Bingo, Murder & Fuzzy Bed Socks.
It went like this …
Sprog 2 woke early yesterday and asked if we could go for a walk. “Mummy can’t,” I said, “she has to go to jail.” Sprog 2 didn’t bat an eyelid, just curled up on the sofa to watch Charlie & Lola. Mummy had a hangover, so she wasn’t really looking forward to jail. But she’d promised to meet someone there. (Need a refresher course on my prison time? See https://housegoeshome.com/2012/01/06/murder-medicine-and-motherhood/) When you book a jail visit, they tell you to arrive at 8.15am. Lord knows why, because they’re lucky to unlock the front doors by 9am (followed by another 20 minutes of faffing while they get their scanners working). I don’t mind the wait outside, it can be highly entertaining. Yesterday there was woman wearing fuzzy bed socks and chain-smoking. Between puffs she discussed her time doing jury duty. It was a case involving parents who left their sick three-month old baby in the care of her nine-year-old sister while they played bingo. When they got back the baby was dead. The fuzzy bed sock woman was outraged that the parents were found not guilty. So when she got called up for jury duty again reecently, she told them: “Look, my daughter’s in jail for f@#kin’ murder. I don’t feel like being on a f@#kin’ jury right now. And they got straight back to me that I didn’t have to f@#kin’ do it.” Also listening to her tale – it was a bit hard not to, fuzzy bed sock woman didn’t have volume control – was a terrified nun. At least I think she was a nun. She was wearing sensible brown shoes, her hair was in a bun and she had a big, silver Jesus medalliony thing around her neck. She gave tiny flinches every time the ”f” word was uttered, which was quite often. I took pity on her and started a conversation. I really, really wanted to continue eavesdropping on the fuzzy bed sock woman, because she was fascinating. But it was the nun’s first time at the jail and she seemed pretty freaked out. I soothed her jangled nerves by chatting about stuff that didn’t include the words “murder” and f@#K. (Gave me flashbacks to a Valentine’s Day dinner I had with Husband at Marque many years ago. The woman at the next day kept screeching, “Oh my god, it’s f@#kin’ raw! If the next thing’s f@#kin’ raw I’ll complain, I f@#kin’ will” about every course. It was very romantic.) Eventually I got a chance to tune back into fuzzy bed sock woman, who was mid-rant: “It wasn’t f@#kin’ murder, it was f@#kin’ manslaughter. She’d been comin’ after her for ages. It was f@#kin’ self-defence. She came at her again, so she f@#kin’knifed her in the arm …” A bloke in the queue speculated: “Must’ve hit a vein.” And fuzzy bed sock woman said, “If it was me, I would’ve just stood there and watched herf@#kin’ bleed out.” At that moment, the doors to the visitors’ centre finally clicked open and I didn’t get to hear any more about fuzzy bed sock woman’s colourful life. But I’m really hoping she’s there next time I visit. Eventually, I got to see my friend Kathy. I bought her a can of lemonade and a packet of snakes from the junk machine in the corridor. We discussed old school friends, her hopes for a retrial and her joy at having her first hot chips in eight years (a prison officer gave her his takeaway dinner leftovers). We laughed, we bitched, we gossiped, we commiserated. It felt so normal, yet so completely abnormal at the same time. When I finally re-emerged into the sunlight, I drove to my local butcher and asked him to cut a nice, big lamb shoulder for me. As he sliced, I recalled fuzzy bed sock woman’s desire to watch that unknown woman “bleed out”. Two such different worlds in one city. And I spent the morning in both.
housegoeshome 
Leave a comment