There was a whiff of Tropical Storm Karen around my way yesterday.
I’ll explain the what first and then the why.
Tropical Storm Karen swept past Puerto Rico last month and inspired a swathe of jokes in its wake. #Karen even started trending on Twitter.
People thought a storm called Karen was totally hilarious. “Karen” has become synonymous in cyberspace with a white mum sporting a blond bob cut and a penchant for complaining. Or as the Urban Dictionary puts it: “Usually the name of a mother with three kids who has a short hairstyle and would like to speak to the manager.”
According to the website Know Your Meme
the association may have first come about because of Mean Girls’ ditzy, popular high school character Karen Smith.
Tweets were along the lines of “Tropical Storm #Karen has formed, and she already wants to speak to a manager.”
OK, that was the what. Now the why.
Despite having skipped for three days, the youngest was intent on getting up early to have her first-ever spray tan before flying to New York. I have no idea why a spray tan was required in New York in October, but I figured she deserved a treat, so I took her to my friend Mel’s place for a session in the kitchen in her pop-up spray tan tent at 8am before wearily heading to work.
You may remember that I was quite fond of a suburban spray tan in the dying days of my marriage as a pick-me-up.
I wrote an infamous blog post about it called “Naked and alone with a woman”.
After letting herself marinate in Bondi Sands for a while, the youngest jumped on a bus to a local nail salon to get her acrylics done. She had to pay for those babies herself.
She gets her nails done quite regularly, after extensively researching the latest trending colours and nail shapes.
This time she went for white as she felt it would be more versatile with her holiday wardrobe.
But I was bombarded with messages during the afternoon about how unhappy she was with the results. They were too short and “just not good”. The complaining continued when I got home from work.
Hence the Tropical Storm Karen reference. I expect she will be formidable in a few years and the complaints will be directed at the manager rather than me.
I will remind you that she is only 13 and still a long way off 14.
I had zero interest in manicures as a 13 year old and wouldn’t have known a good one from a bad one.
I still didn’t at age 51 when she waved her fingers at me yesterday.
But the youngest knows exactly what she wants and is very cranky when she doesn’t get it.
It stood her in good stead at Nationals – she needed to get one of the top 10 speed scores to qualify to do her solo routine. The youngest isn’t much of a speed skipper, but she doggedly scored a personal best to ensure she got a spot.
My ex collected the kids yesterday for their holiday to New York. I asked him to hold off until 5.30pm so I could dash home after work and say goodbye.
I was very sad to see them go. I can’t believe they’re overseas for 18 days.
The house is going to be soooooo quiet.
Not that I’ll have a chance to enjoy the quiet, as the next few days are insanely busy. For example, tonight I’m off to two booze functions. Two!
Both brands have advertised in the latest issue of Drinks Trade magazine, so I thought I’d better give them and their free drinks some love.
If I don’t get home too late, I’ll give you the lowdown tomorrow.
Song of the day: Bjork “It’s oh so quiet”
housegoeshome 
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