Who wears the pants?

My vacuum bags arrived ... thanks Dusty!

Your unconditional hand of friendship has shone a glaring light on my empty sarcasm. Your return address sticker is one of the warmest, most heartfelt stickers I have ever seen in the time that I have become addicted to online shopping.

I will now add you to my 'favourites'.

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Last week I think I may have walked a few steps in the shoes of a soccer mum. I think it was the moment I opened the door to my boutique 4WD and threw in many bags of groceries in an exasperated fashion, before speeding off to 'pick up the kids from childcare' (in compound-land that means coming home to allow haus meri to leave), running through the front door in work clothes with ID pass, wiping snotty nose, wondering when I could start drinking wine, running bath, feeding child while on phone, putting child to bed, cooking dinner, sterilising bottles, doing late night feed and then collapsing in heap. By Thursday, I went on strike and put myself to bed at 8.20pm. It was absolutely the right call.

But if the everyday demands of life such as the above seemed to 'stretch' me somewhat - this was nothing compared to meeting the demands of my haus meri. On Wednesday morning I took dictation regarding what I needed to buy for the haus meri baby group we were hosting the next day. Doing my best to manage time, I decided to buy the stuff a day early, so I drove out to the shops, rushed around with my list, paid a sum of money that ended up being higher in total than the weekly food bill for our family and came home. As I struggled with the 8 bottles of Sprite and Fanta and the 2 litre bottle of milk that were thoughtfully packed into a single giant plastic bag, in addition to the other 7 bags of groceries, I passed my haus meri on the walkway having a relaxing stroll in the shade with Emerald looking at the birds.

I'm not sure how it came to this.

The next day was The Day and it was big. Everyone who was anyone in the compound rocked around to our house and it was loud and chaotic and definitely a wilder affair than we have ever held.

Yes - Mama and Dada have been out-rocked by the compound haus meris and the kids. As I slinked out to work ("byyyeeee" cried all the ladies as I left them in my fully-catered house while I went to earn some more kina to pay off my Fanta and cake debts), I did snap the party. It's official: Emerald has more friends than me.

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Now I don't claim to be any kind of expert on US politics (in fact I am generally profoundly bewildered by that particular democracy) - but I am picking up on the vibes that Obama is not quite rocking it like he was initially. For example, the way he caused that massive oil spill and then did NOTHING to make it better - that was a really ill-thought out political strategy.

Today I've heard that he has dared to defend freedom of expression for religious groups - people are up in arms about this! Understandably - people are questioning why the hell they ever thought this guy was different to all the rest. I will stop paraphrasing, here are his words:

"But let me be clear. As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is essential to who we are. The writ of the founders must endure."

What a loser! He is obviously 'out of touch'. Following these comments he made another statement to clarify that he was not addressing "the wisdom of the decision" to build a mosque in that particular location.

Someone else's 'wisdom'.

Now Obama's problem.

Kind of like the oil leak.

It takes a ballsy American President to defend the rights of freedom of religion in this time and place. It would have been a lot easier for him to go another way. Obama - I will still wear your T-shirt.

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