Sweaty woman ranting.

When people say “Oh I loooove summer!” I just want to punch them.
Why? Tell me why?
What is so damned good about sweat mustaches, having to make sure your armpits and legs are constantly shaved so you can wear as little clothing as possible, therefore risking sunburn, when it’s 40 damned nightmarish degree’s, and if you could you would remove your skin, just to feel a little cooler…
Nights of tossing and turning, arguing with your spouse that “I don’t care about the ludicrously high electricity bill, I am sleeping with the air con ON!”
Tempers are frayed, gardens need ten times the amount of watering, food is unappetizing, insects are multiplying rapidly everywhere (I’m over Christmas beetles crunching under my bare feet!)
The light is so harsh…it makes my eyeballs melt. I wear my sunglasses to bed Corey Hart!
I sweat….HEAR ME ROAR.
I freaking hate summer!

Seriously. If all you do is go to the beach, then I can understand why you “love” summer. (But I still want to punch you.)
I don’t swim in the ocean. There are too many things in our oceans here that can kill you, or eat you, or at least give you a heart attack thinking it can either kill you or eat you. Dark clouds of seaweed lurking under the waves will do that.
I was once “bumped” by something large under the water (No it wasn’t a giant turd in the Bondi surf) ever since then I’ve decided I’d rather not venture into the territory of things that go bump, which might also have very big teeth that go BITE….thankyouverymuch.
No…shell collecting is about my adventure point on the beach, and even then, in some parts, some damn shells can KILL you.

So for me, summer means many long days of lots of bitching and moaning as I hibernate inside my self made cave – windows closed, blinds shut, fans on high, nibbling listlessly on lettuce leaves and praying for cool afternoon changes so I can once again BREATHE.
More so than that…..dreaming of winter, and long pants so I don’t have to bother with shaving my legs.

My daughter came home from school the other day and told me that her art teacher had worn a short dress to school that day. Mid thigh length. The bottom half of her legs were nicely shaved…
She said “But Mum…she had long luscious thigh hair. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was like black monkey hair. All the kids were pointing and whispering.”
Poor woman.
I’d stop at the knee’s too if I had that much hair.

It’s a pain in the neck shaving your legs! Literally sometimes.
Somehow I always manage to cut myself and we don’t have a built in bath in this house that I can safely perch myself on the edge of (It’s a fancy claw-foot tub and I don’t want to sit on the edge of IT – and fall backwards and break my neck.)
So I’ve been trying to figure out how to shave my legs in the shower.
Is there some trick to shaving your legs in the shower ladies?
Is it even possible, without actually sitting on the shower floor?
I get dizzy bending over and there are pendulous…things, blocking my view.
Ok, too much information.
Showers should have a “leg shaving ledge” in them. Somewhere to prop your foot on so you don’t have to bend right over and risk passing out from steam inhalation and increased blood flow to the brain. Or risk knocking yourself out with large pendulous…things.

That Christmas falls in the middle of this disgusting state of affairs is something that upsets me greatly, each and every year.
I love Christmas! I really do, but my sense of enjoyment of this festive time is rudely interrupted by the reality that no…there will be no snow. No snowmen. No sleigh rides, no sleigh bells…Just the incessant deafening shrill of cicada’s.
No woolen stockings strung from the cosy mantle… There is no COSY at all, unless you count the sweat dribbling between your buttocks. No roaring fireplaces… Just the sirens as fire trucks race to yet another raging out of control bushfire.
There is no warm scent of cinnamon, and nutmeg and all those wonderful Christmas spices….there is the smell of bushfire smoke in the air.
Mango’s and bushfire smoke, are what OUR Christmas smells like. And stinky sweaty bodies….and Aeroguard, to keep the mozzies away.

It’s depressing. How can one get in the Christmas Spirit, when you’ve just sweat it all out just walking around the supermarket aisles? (You’ll find me resting in the freezer aisle.)
How can one have Christmas cheer, when you have to face the torturous twisted task of contorting yourself like a freak in the shower at least every other day to shave away all that monkey leg hair?
How can one be MERRY when you’re suffering from lack of sleep, an overload of BBQ’s and inhaled flies, with dots of calamine lotion all over your exposed parts from being eaten alive by mosquito’s.

The Christmas cards LIE.
Christmas is an illusion. Something people in far away beautiful snow glistening countries that don’t own flies or mozzies, only experience.
We just play pretend here while we roast, and sweat, eat flies, slap our selves silly swatting at mosquito’s and slice our legs shaving!

I’m dreaming of…. another hemisphere, and long luscious monkey hair up to my armpits that I need never have to shave.