My friends – Finding Anne Watkins

4 marg-a-rootas and I was rooted

This blog is a sequal to ‘5 slippery nipples please’.

It’s Saturday night and I’m on my way to the city for another night out with my girl friends (GFs) to celebrate a birthday. A few of us have booked into the Grace Hotel for the night expecting that none of us would be in a condition to get home. Although I don’t live far from the city, I thought it was a great bonding opportunity.

Our night started at Cockle Bay for dinner at the Blackbird Cafe, and I must add the beef skewers I ordered would go down in my culinary list of best eats. I’m a very fussy meat eater having spent several years as a vegetarian and 6 months during this time as a vegan, so I can only eat meat that melts in my mouth. This delicious meal was washed down with my first cocktail of the night. I can’t remember the name of the cocktail but it was red and yummy.

After dinner nine of us walked the 15 minute or so to the Bristol Arms Hotel, commonly known as the Retro. The Retro offers five levels of dancing from the Basement through to the rooftop. We were in the Pure Retro room on the ground level. Now you can be forgiven if you think I’m the one who chooses to go to the Retro purely for 80s music but I’m not one of those middle aged people stuck in the 70s or 80s for my music enjoyment. On the contrary, I’d much prefer the music of the 90s or 2000s but my 30+ year old friends seem to love 80s music, so who am I to complain.

The Retro also caters for Hen’s nights, so there’s always a group of hens clucking around a bride-to-be all dressed in the theme of the night. This night’s theme was ‘Puss’n Boots’. I was a bit disappointed with our party, which blew out to around 30 guests, most got the ‘boots’ bit right but clearly missed the ‘puss’ component, including me.

The music got off to a flying start with Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”, which technically isn’t an 80’s song but an old favourite none-the-less, followed by The Bangles “Walk Like and Egyptian” which was well and truly an 80s song and transported me back to “the day” when I was dancing up a storm at the local Workmans Club, commonly known as the Workies. It was the only venue in town for most of the 80s and songs like the ones mentioned were new releases.

Who would have thought many years later I’d still be dancing to the same songs. I can only hope for future generations the likes of Lady GaGa, or as I like to call her ‘Lady all gimmick no talent’, will be thrown in the ‘forgotten’ closet with all her freakish muso ancestors of times gone by.

Anyway, I mentioned the Retro caters for Hen’s nights and on this night there were two distinct groups of Hens. One group approximately mid 20s, all skinny and gorgeous. The bride-to-be wearing a slinky black dress barley covering her arse, with hooker heals on a very high boot. Her friends all equally as thin and pretty taking turns doing sexy little dance moves on the podiums that are scattered around the room. If it wasn’t for the short black veil worn by the bride-to-be, I would have thought they were out to impress the blokes with their skimpy attire and sexy moves. Well I guess maybe there were!

In vast contrast the second group of Hens consisted of all little fatties fussing over an equally fat bride-to-be. Now I’m not being a bitch, this is purely an observation by a middle-age not-so-thin woman. But I must give credit to the little fatties they certainly came dressed in theme, albeit not the theme of the night. The bride-to-be wore a black corset with a short pink tutu and long black boots. Another hen was dressed in a corset and very tight pants with long lace-up boots. Her boobs poured over her tightly worn corset which reminded me of ice-cream bludging over the sides of a waffle cone which struggled to contain the impending flow.

More to the power of these girls, I say. It certainly shows that they are comfortable in their own skin – all of it.

Speaking of skin, I have never seen so much exposed flesh in one room. The majority of the girls got into the ‘Puss n Boots’ theme – I’ve never seen so many almost exposed pussies in my life. Not that I wanted to mind you, but on this occasion I didn’t get much choice as many of the girls found their way to the nearest podium and danced like they were at a strip club. Some better than others and given the short dresses – well you use your imagination.

My observations didn’t stop at the girlies on the night. The boys gave me something to reflect on as well. Unlike ‘back in the day’ when I was night-clubbing, the boys at the Retro, after a few drinks, were also taking to the podiums, in-between the strippers – I mean girlies. One by one they would take turns showing their skills in hip hop dancing, or whatever they call it. And one several occasions I’d see a group dancing together, clearly letting their mucho act slip for the sake of the music. The blokes in my day stood around the edge perving.

On my last visit to the Retro, I was drinking slippery-nipple shots, this night I was drinking the cocktail of the night aptly named “marg-a-roota”, which by the way is how it was spelt on the waitresses badge worn next to her voluptuous boobs. I’m sure the blokes enjoyed the sight and got mileage out of asking for one. By one I mean a marg-a-roota – just in case you were confused.

Anyway, the night progressed and after four or so marg-a-rootas, I was feeling rather rooted but fought off the feeling of wanting to go home and crawl into bed by accepting the offer from my persuasive GF to get up on the podium and dance. No sooner did I hop up, she was called away. There I was left high-and-dry dancing on a podium. Oh well, I had two choices: 1. start stripping, as that seem to be working for others, or 2. Escape. Having decided on choice 2, I made an awkward exit from the spotlight and continued dancing at ground level until it was time to go, which for us was around 1am. By this time I was wide awake and looking forward to early morning dessert at the Lindt Cafe at Cockle Bay.

However, my hopes were dashed by the 30+ year olds who clearly had enough and wanted to hit the sack. So here I was, the old broad of the group, walking down Sussex St Sydney aiding the birthday girl who could hardly walk because she had worn new boots for the occasion and they were killing her. Her sister was also struggling to walk in her second pair of boots for the night as the first brand new pair broke and she ended up in her sister’s slightly smaller pair. To top it off the bloke of the group was also the walking wounded in his new shoes. All complaining about the freezing cold.

Goodness gracious me, times have changed. I don’t think the youngens of today are as tough as we were ‘in the day’. When we left the Workies at midnight, because that’s when it closed, it was so cold you could see the steam emanating from our mouths when breathing out. We’d wear skimpy clothes, high heels and barely a jacket between us. We’d head off to the pizza joint which opened until 3am then try and muzzle in on any parties to extent the early morning into mid morning. Now that was Friday night’s entertainment. We’d back it all up on the Saturday night.

Ahh the kids of today – they just can’t handle it!

Finding Mr 50%

I had dinner the other night with two girlfriends (GFs), both in their 30s and single. One has been on a dating site, eHarmony, for a while and the other GF has just signed up for the same site after an unsuccessful five minute membership with RSVP – apparently she got numerous emails from blokes using handles such as flavourisious and fullysicbro and thought that maybe she wouldn’t find the “one” on this site unless she was really looking for a fully sic bro who thought he was flavourisious.

It became apparent from a discussion about tick boxes that I realised my GFs were really narrowing their selection criteria. For instance one GF would disregard any man who selected from a list of “things you can’t live without” the option of “can’t live without sex”. Ok, that would narrow the list down to 15%, maybe less. Her reasoning behind this was that they were only looking for a f-buddy, if you get my drift. The same GF also disregarded any man who didn’t select the option “enjoyed reading books”, narrowing the list down to about 3.5%.

For the 3.5% of men who got through this tough selection process and went as far as emailing or chatting online, they would get the boot for spelling mistakes or crappy grammar. There’s not a man I know that can live without sex, loves to read and who could win a spell-a-thon.

The other GF is looking for an Aussie bloke, preferably tall, professional and a good sense of humour. She’s had a couple of unsuccessful relationships with non-Aussie background blokes, one who is tied at the hip to his mamma and the other whose family wouldn’t eat at her house because she ate pork. In a multi-cultural city like Sydney, finding an Aussie bloke is becoming a tall order.

This discussion got me to think about about all the discussions I’ve been in with single women and how they all want the same thing, to find “Mr Right to spend the rest of their life with”. Their idea of Mr Right usually sounds like this: tall, handsome, romantic, someone to share long walks on the beach with, intelligent, someone who listens to what ‘you’ have to say.

Faced with that criteria and the ones set out by my GFs, no man on earth qualifies.

You might get your tall and handsome man who may even be romantic and they may even like long walks on the beach but his man will be more interested in his looks, his romantic gestures will be a ploy to get laid by other women, and the long walks on the beach will be to see what other hot women perv on him. He’ll be dumb as dog shit and couldn’t give a damn about your woes. And let’s face it, this man is looking for his Pammy big titty Anderson – so needless to say this relationship won’t be a lasting one.

Then there’s the intelligent guys. These men usually don’t have a sense of humour; their idea of romance is to take you to a Star Wars convention (I’ve been on a date like this once). They won’t listen to you because they’ll have their headphones on while playing Star Ship wars with someone in Russia. They are usually short and stubby or very tall and skinny with no arse – yuck!

So faced with these limitations, I think all single women should aim for a “Mr 50%”. However, when selecting the 50% they need to remember there are validations they need to pass to achieve this 50%. Let me explain….

You can’t have tall, handsome and intelligent; or tall, handsome and funny; or tall, handsome, intelligent and funny. You can’t have short, handsome and intelligent; or short, handsome and funny.

You can have tall, funny and ugly; or tall, intelligent and ugly; or short, ugly and intelligent; you can also have tall, handsome and dumb as dog shit. If you get my drift? Unfortunately girls, men don’t come any other way.

And as for their next criteria: “to spend the rest of their life with”. Given the limitations I described above, does any woman see themselves with these guys longer than, let’s say, 10 years?

However, on the other hand, given that finding Mr Right is like finding the pot of gold on the end of a rainbow, you may as well stick it out because the grass isn’t greener on the other side – all you’ll find is another Mr 50%.

True friends tell how it is

Do you ever find yourself in a situation where you feel that someone should be warned that they look foolish, which may possibly result in them being ridiculed? It’s these times, which I’ll explain in this blog, that I rely on my friends’ openness and honesty to alleviate the possibility of me being ridiculed. True friends tell how it is, not what you want to hear. That’s my friendship oath and I expect little else in return.

For example, just the other day I was sitting on a bus waiting to be taken to the shopping centre during my lunch hour. As the bus driver began to close the door a woman appeared from the building exit, she was running towards the bus waving her hands so the driver would notice her and stop, which he did. When the woman reached the bus she turned to hurry her ‘friend’ along. I say ‘friend’ in inverted commas because as this story unfolds, you, like me, will wonder if this women is a “true friend”.

When the first woman called back to the second woman – all eyes on the bus diverted to the second woman. After all we were all keen to get going. It was our lunch ‘hour’ and we all know you can’t get a lot of shopping done in one hour. Anyway, as my eyes focused on the second woman it was very clear that her size was going to impact her ability to get to the bus at record speed. By the time she reached the bus she was out of breath and the passengers were glad that finally, we were on our way.

The shuffled dash was only about 10 meters, so I’m talking about a very large woman. And what drew my attention was the sheer size of her belly. Now it’s not a good look that a woman has a belly so big the weight draws it down towards her knees, but what made this sight all the more appalling was the fact that she was wearing black pants (no that wasn’t the bad part) with a lose T-shirt (still not the bad part) that barely passed her waist and did nothing to cover the drooping belly which was tucked into her black pants (we’re getting warmer). Now for the disturbing part (here we are) – her pants didn’t have a zipper but a front seam which was pulled so tight it created a camel toe affect with the women’s belly.

O.M.G how the hell didn’t she notice this catastrophe in the mirror before she left home?

Now it’s probably about his time you may think I’m a bitch for telling this story. But it wasn’t the fact that she is a large woman with inappropriate clothing that disturbed me, it was the fact that there’s a distinct possibility that this woman hasn’t been warned about her inappropriate clothing choice. Which leads me to ask – has she got any friends? If so, why don’t they tell her she needs to cover up or face ridicule?

As I sat on the bus for the 15 minute ride to the shopping centre, the two women chatted away about work and their Easter plans. No mention from the other woman that maybe her T-shirt choice for that day was totally unacceptable. I was hoping that the large woman could get through the one hour shopping trip without a smart arse kid making fun, which I’m sure would be the case quite often – you know how kids can be little bastards in these situations. So I felt rather sorry for her, after all we shouldn’t assume she’s large because she can’t resist foods such as the ‘double-down from KFC’ – which I find rather appalling by the way. Maybe she has a thyroid issue?

Anyway, this scene got me thinking about my friendships, how I treat my friends and how I want them to treat me.

Now I maybe way off in saying that, for the most-part, I’m a kind loving person who goes out of my way to help and encourage my friends. But, I can also be charged with telling them exactly how I think – for better or worse. But to me, that’s what friends are for. Of course this also applies to my family, especially my kids and especially my daughter.

The level of truth and bluntness I give is reliant on the level of friendship. The blunter I am, the better the friendship. If coupled with sarcastic humour, then we’re great friends. For example: If a very good friend asks my opinion of their clothing choice, my reply would be: “Really, that was your choice this morning? Take it off before anyone sees me talking to you dressed like that”.

On the flip side, if someone I don’t like asks for my opinion then my evil twin appears. For example; if asked “Do I look good in this?” My reply would be: “Oh yes, red and green look great together, especially on you”.

As I mentioned earlier, I also apply my friendship rules to my family, especially my daughter. For example, I distinctly remember telling her when she was a teenager, the shoes she was wearing at the time made her feet look deformed and fat, and there’s nothing worse than fat feet – wait on, there is something far worse than fat feet and that’s a huge belly with camel toe. Of course she didn’t agree at the time but she hasn’t worn that style of shoe since – I’m still waiting on a thanks.

I expect the same level of honesty from my friends. I remember one particular mufti Friday when I wore a loose fitting cream silky shirt with a u-shaped hem falling substantially at the back; I do wear a lot of clothes with differing hem lengths. Anyway, on this particular day my friend ask me, while we were on our way to get a coffee, if I drove to work or dropped out of an aeroplane, indicating that my top looked more like a parachute. Damn, I liked that top and now I can’t wear it again – but I have my good friend to thank because I would have happily worn this top again not realising it looked ridiculous.

Now getting back to our camel toe friend (poor dear); if she was my friend, I’d certainly tell her something along the lines of: “Do you think that you should wear that short top, because people will stare at you like you’re a road accident – they know they shouldn’t look but they can’t help it because it’s human nature to look at the grotesque?”

I guess I can only hope and wish, that like me, everyone has true friends to tell them how it really is and not how they wish it was.

5 slippery nipples please

I’ve just had a memorable night out with some great friends at the Retro Hotel in Sussex Street Sydney. The night started out with a pleasant ferry trip into the city with my good friend Gee. I knew it was going to be a good night because my sarcastic, potty-mouth humour was on fire. This night proved to me, that I might be getting old but I can still have a blast.

Gee who lives in the Western Suburbs of Sydney was enthralled by the ferry trip as is most who see Sydney at its best – at night and from a boat – said she felt like she was in another country – which indicated to me that she needs to get out more.

I must add here that we started our trip into the city at 5.45pm. Yes folks it was pensioner hour so it doesn’t came as a surprise that this great night was going to end early.

When Gee and I arrived at Cockle Bay we met up with another friend Von and we headed straight to the Retro. I was surprised that at this early hour we were met at the door by large Maori man who wasn’t going to let us inside unless we had a booking, which we did. Once he was happy, he proceeded to stamp our wrist and let us through. It was at this time I realised how long it’s been since I’d been out to a night club – I’d forgotten about the stamp.

However, it did transport me back to the early 80s at the Lithgow Workies Club, which is a two bob joint in country NSW. I was also reminded of Lithgow when I asked the Retro barmaid for a Sauvignon Blanc and was told they only had Semillon Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay or a couple of reds which I wasn’t interested in drinking that night. On my last visit to Lithgow I asked the barmaid for a Sauvagine Blanc, she looked at me blankly and said we’ve only got white or red. I foolishly asked from what vineyard; this question was clearly lost on her. Not learning my lesson, a couple of hours later I asked the same barmaid for a Frangellico – obviously they haven’t heard of it in Lithgow.

Anyway back to the Retro, where I should add that the Retro caters for women’s hen nights; they offer a three course meal with a side of karaoke followed by dancing at either one of the two night clubs. I didn’t know beforehand they offered karaoke but Bel, another friend who’s mad keen on karaoke, couldn’t help but suggest this venue for the girl’s night out (plus one bloke).

Once we got past our big Maori friend a very drunk Irishman, who was with a group of his co-construction workers, asked which one of us were getting married. Now this question seems simple enough but let me set the scene – two of us are middle age and have been married twice, the other friend although early 30s had just recently separated from her husband, so needless to say we looked at him as if he was mad and set him straight about our circumstances of which he replied that he has also been married twice. Who’d a thought that this wonderful Irish man would have ever been sober enough to get married even once?

After a short time another five friends arrived and we headed downstairs to the restaurant – well technically it wasn’t a restaurant, it was more like a big room with approximately 6 long tables complete with balloon centrepieces and a big sign indicating who’s sitting where.

Only one of the tables had been occupied with what appeared to be around 30 women looking like they were attending a wake rather than a hen’s night. Once we sat down at our designated table we were off and running, our table was by far the one where ‘it’ was happening. By ‘it’ I mean from anyone else’s point of view, we were having a good time and our table was the place to be even though the average age of the bunch was 40. Proven again, we still know how to party!

On each table was a list of alcoholic shots with very crude names, including a Slippery Nipple, a Quick F*&k, a C*#k S#cking Cowboy and a Wet Pu##y. See what I mean when I say crude! It goes without saying that one middle-age pottymouth women, not naming any names, steered the night’s conversation well and truly into the gutter, setting the scene for the night ahead. But in my defence, I mean her defence, we laughed so hard I’m sure some of us wet our pants on several occasions – not that I did mind you.

I must mention here the only person to get up and partake in karaoke was Bel. I acted out the role an Idol judge who would make Simon Crowley come across as a good natured sole: “Get off – next!”

The night progressed, we got drunk and literally danced the night away. Fee, another friend, ensured the drinks kept flowing. She even served us up a round of Slippery Nipples, which tasted so damn good I got another round, but when I returned to the group, Fee had gone without a word to anyone. I’m sure she made it home, or to Oxford Street for more fun knowing her.

Obviously the cheap white wine and shots had a positive affect on me. As I’m not usually an outwardly friendly person to strangers, on this night I’m sure I had something nice to say to everyone that came within cooee. I’m also pretty sure I even dished out some non-smoking advice to a couple of nice Irish guys who had ducked outside for a fag. BTW Sydney must have to next biggest population of Irish than Dublin itself – which isn’t a bad thing – who can resist a sexy Irish accent.

As midnight approached and there was only 4 of us left, well actually only 3. Me, Gee and the bloke (Jas). The bloke’s missus (Sonia) was looking a bit shady and need to get home quick. With a quick dash out the door to catch a taxi, the party had now reduced to Gee and Me. We looked at each other and said – “I’m hungy!”