This mad cow thing is quite disturbing and would make one look long and hard at that steak before eating (via luke). I briefly flirted with the vegetarian life when I had vegie flatmates last year, but I ended up scoffing down hamburgers at work to get my fix. What can I say, I was raised on a cattle/sheep farm, and if you didn't eat your meat for dinner you were thrashed about the head with a crowbar.

The beauty of meat back then was we knew exactly where it had come from. We never had to worry about CJD or pesticides or whatnot. The steak on my plate came from the cow who's stinking pat I had stepped in the week before. The lamb roast had come from the sweet little sheepie I bottle-fed when its mother had abandoned it. We knew exactly what it had eaten because we grew the crops and made the hay that it munched on.

During my Farm Years™ I estimate having eaten various bits of about 10 pet lambs. How could I be so barbaric? Well, it's not all about sweet little woolly creatures, you know. When they first arrived they would be pissed off as hell because their mother inexplicably dumped them in a middle of a paddock and nicked off. And they invariably had very shitty arses. They needed to be fed three times a day. And they were always born in the middle of winter so you had to crunch through the frost with the bottles of milk and they always missed the teat of the bottle and slobbered all over your hand. Half of them died just as you finally decided on a name for them!

One winter, we had a lamb called Billy. Then came Jilly, Willy, Milly, Dilly, Lily, and Willy Nilly. In the mornings my sister and I would walk out the back of the house armed with four baby bottles each. Instantly the little bleating hoardes would descend. We were quite skilled at feeding all of them simultaneously, two bottles in each hand. Then even more lambs arrived at our little refuge. Luckily a few passed on to the big pasture in the sky, so we could recycle the ridiculous Illy names.

The ones that survived got older and fatter and woollier and they followed us around absolutely everywhere. If you ignored them, they would stomp on your feet. They would sneak inside the yard and eat the roses. If you didn't feed them early enough they would clip clop along the verandah and bash their noses against the bedroom window, bleating endlessly until you got up.

That was the point at which enough was enough and we sent them off to the sheep sales or our stepdad decided the freezer was getting a bit low and we needed some more chops and lamb roasts. The sheep sale thing was good, back then we used to get about $30 per sheep, which was big bucks for a 12 year old! The money was our reward for feeding the smelly bastards for so long. And if the outcome was lamb roast, well you just smothered it in mint sauce and tried to forget that it once had a name!

I was slumped on the couch contemplating the meaning of life and wondering what colour to paint my toenails when on the telly appeared unto me a "song" bleated out by that annoying little tramp Vitamin C. Vitamin C? How can you just lay claim to a generic name like that? She even has a website with the just dazzling title of vitamincisgood4u.com. Sure, her hair is a revolting array of poorly-dyed citrus colours, but what next? Will all the teenies be grooving on down to the likes of Steak Diane? Stapler? Tube O' Toothpaste?

If this little hussy thinks she personifies the most refreshing of vitamins, I suggest we put her to the test! Let's dismember her unnaturally perky body and feed her to a bunch of crusty old sailors and see if she wards off scurvy! Ahoy matey!

I kicked $10 into a Powerball syndicate with a bunch of colleagues to try and win Thursday's $30 million jackpot. We ended up with a few winning numbers which means we all get $20. Not bad eh? But what really sucks this big one is that our boss chose the all-important Powerball number. She chose 17, which is her daughters age. What I wish I didn't know is that she was tossing up between picking her daughters age or her son's age. Her son is 19. And what was the powerball? 19!

Taking out $15 mill for the Perth dude who also chose the correct numbers, we would have collected $833,333 each! WAH!!! Coincidentally, the boss' last day was Thursday, she has now very conveniently moved to Melbourne and will escape our wrath!

Purrrrrworthy bloke du jour: Arnaud Clement, French tennis stud muffin who was runner up to Andre Agassi in todays Australian Open final. While my sister spent the past fortnight mopping up her puddles o' drool over Pat Rafter, the Frenchman was my lust object of choice. Clemmo is 23 years young, like myself, and is just damn cute and sweet and looks a treat out there on the court. And his broken English and gorgeous accent are most endearing. Of course, he just may be a dirty old Frenchman in his native toungue, but I wouldn't have any complaints about that either! Mwahaha.

We had a deeeeeeelicious dinner tonight. Stir fried vegies with barbequed prawns. That's shrimp to you foreigners. It was darn tasty!

I ask you, have you ever seen a more rusty car than this? Spotted in the Woolies car park this eve. I was sposed to just wait in my car in my daggiest shorts and ratty t-shirt and crappy hair moaning about the horrid weather, while my sister bought some things. But I braved the horrified stares of shoppers to take the picture! Woohoo!

Purrrrrworthy bloke du jour: Jonathan Firth, brother of Mr Darcy. Right now I am watching re-run of crap mini-series Kangaroo Palace, which stars the pond scum of Australian actors, Rebecca Gibney and John Polson. It is only otherwise noteworthy because of this lovely boy Jon. He's got the same brooding dark haired dark eyed look as his bro, but a little leaner. Just how I like 'em! Pity the scene's coming up where he jumps off a bridge. Pah.

Why do some blogging types find it necessary to refer to their blogs in the royal "we"? As if there is a dedicated staff of thousands working around the clock to produce their masterful publication? "We here at X-blog can't get enough of that new album/love smearing ourselves with chocolate/suggest you vote for someone else in the bloggies/are going naked waterskiiing this weekend/etc etc etc". We we we all the way home!

I for one will always been a staunch advocate of "me me me". No we here! It's bad enough admitting this is all I can come up with, let alone if a whole team was involved!

Who is this WE, I ask you? Do you have a crack team of monkeys with typewriters churning out copy? Or is it just you there in your undies in front of the computer, eating Doritos and scratching yourself?

Is there anyone reading this who has a technical kind of job amongst a bunch of non-technical people? I am the Webmistress *cracks whip* amongst a herd of buffoon public servants, and every time there is something vaguely icky about a machine, they come to me thinking that my web knowledge somehow extends to anything that goes bleep. It really shits me, because I really DO NOT BLOODY KNOW how to fix machines or whatnot. Don't they know I am not even really a web person, that I am just pretending? Just this week I have had asked of me:

• Why is the printer smudging ink on my report?
• Do you know how to do styles in Word?
• How do you spell Adelaide?
• Can you change my monitor around so it points up more?
• How do I type a dollar sign on my Palm Pilot?
• Hey Shauna, how come when I pulled this big chunk of plastic out of the printer, the printer won't go back together again?
• What's another word for yours sincerely?
• What's these red and green squiggles in my word document?
• How do you refill the stapler?
• Can you make me a diagram in Excel?
• Can you fix my calculator?
• Shauna Shauna Shauna! Why are my faxes coming out blank?
• Can you show me how to make my mobile have those groovy songs when it rings?
• Hey Shauna, are you a real webmistress? Then show me your whip and let's get busy!

One of the above is not true.

It's the Year Of The Snake, people! I am a snake myself. 1977 was a good year. I am also a Scorpio, according to that other astro thingy, which means that if I don't bite you with my fangs, I'll sting you with my scorpion tail. Mwahhaa. Evil. Anyway. I like the outlook for us slithery ones this year: This is the year for the Snake to shine. They will be at their peak of sensuality and recognition.

You'd better believe it. I am feeling groovy this year (thus far). I just seemed to be a lot more focused, and really working on the terrible being my own worst enemy thing. I am learning to put the crap o' the past behind me. I'm becoming more assertive instead of Miss Doormat of the Year. So watch out kiddies, this snake is shedding her skin. Hurrah!

Last night was simply roasting. I tried to sleep, but at 1am it all became too much. I bought this fan recently, but it had been sitting unassembled in its box for two weeks. I could bear the heat no longer, so I got up and tore open the box and attempted to put it all together. How hard could it be? My sister had hers in action within in ten minutes! I sat on my bed, surrounded by bits of metal and plastic and polysterene, peering at the instructions by the light of my crappy old lamp, because anything brighter would attract those annoying little insects. 2.30 am and all I had achieved was a new record for most expletives in a sentence and a crumpled up instruction booklet. And I was still hot. And very cranky. Bah! So I had to resort to my old fan, Vincent Fan Gough, who is so old and rusty that I believe he kept my grandparents cool during WWII. I tried to sleep while he shrieked and creaked away like a beginners violin lesson. Needless to say, I am a grumpy number today.

All this tennis and grunting reminds me of my own lack of tennis prowess. I can't begin to tell you how unathletic I am. I couldn't even manage to manouever myself out of the womb, they had to do a C-section. From there I became a clumsy little child, then blossoming forth into a uncoordinated teen devoid of all sporting ability whatsoever. My mother railroaded me into netball and hockey but I didn't know the rules, and I tripped over a lot. I couldn't run, jump, skip, tackle, anything. PE classes were my greatest nightmare. My report cards said, Shauna tries hard but is ultimately hopeless.

Wednesday Sports was another nightmare of mine. Spending a sweltering February afternoon on a tennis court was my idea of purest hell. To make it worse, I somehow had acquired very sporty friends who were blessed with coordination and knowledge of the game. I begged them to let me play on one of the back courts, so there would be fewer witnesses to my pathetic skills.

I watched serve after serve whoosh over my head, slowing down the game for everyone else, sulking on the sidelines as the rules were explained to me for the seventeenth time. I wished they would just give up on me. My temper was rising, the 15+ sizzled on my skin, I glared at my friend as she served to me. I swung back wildly and let fly with a wild gutteral URRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNGGGGGGGH! to rival Monica Seles. Racquet connected with ball with an almighty thwack. I'd finally hit it!

We all stood in disbelief as the ball sailed over our court, over the fence, over the front courts, over the front fence, over the gardens, out onto the highway where it slammed into the front of a semi-trailer with a pleasant little bong! sound, hurtled through the air halfway along the bridge, dropped off the side and finally plopped down into the murky Lachlan River.

"Miss Shauna! Go and fetch that ball!" yelled the teacher. My friends were piles of giggles on the scorching court. I rubbed my aching arm and felt quietly pleased with myself. I didn't hit another ball all day.

We ventured over the border this morning to Queanbeyan to go fabric shopping at Spotlight. Urgh. It's a mere 10 kilometres away from the ACT, but feels like a world away. Not that Canberra is exactly a thriving metropolis, but Queanbeyan has that sprawling main street with little floral beds at the intersections and fish and chip shops and passing semi-trailers making the shop windows rattle, that made us feel like we'd be transported back to our homeland.

But the deja vu got worse once we arrived at Spotlight. The front of the store was littered with bored husbands in Stubbies shorts and polo shirts, scratching their crotches and checking their watches. Inside was the largest congregation of frumpy ladies and screeching children I'd seen since my mother last dragged me to the school fete. There was a pack of them gathered around the Sale table, sqwarking over pillowslips and linen tablecloths like magpies over a sandwich crust.

And the fabric! Oh god, the fabric. Lurid prints, fake furs, sequins galore, piles of polyester, a dozen shades of aqua, turquoise and hot pink. It was like being trapped in K-Mart, circa 1982. Even the customers looked like relics from that era. My sister looked at me gravely and told me she was going to choke on all this tackiness. I was just about to tell her it wasn't that bad when I heard a mother screech, "Daaaaaaniel! Siddown and shuddup or you'll git the back of my hand!"

Daniel sat down. Daniel was about 6 years old. Daniel had a shaved head. And a rats tail! Shauna had to take a photo!

Give him 15 years, a Holden Gemini and a flannel shirt and I'M THERE, baby!

Mmm, mango.

Do you ever get that feeling that today will be The Day? The day when they wake up and realise you're a fraud... the day they find out you have no idea what you're doing... the day when they discover you're only frowning at the screen in order to look dedicated... the day they discover you take naps in the bathroom... the day they realise how many times you've stuffed up completely and covered your tracks... the day they realise you really don't give a shit... the day you get a request in your Inbox and you won't know what to do... the day they see the panic in your eyes. Doesn't look like it will be today, but my stomach is churning all the same.

Odd thing happened this afternoon. We opened our front door to let some air in, and a dog walked inside our house. Just like that. He stopped to let us give him a pat, then plonked himself down on the rug. We offered him a drink of water, coz he was a big fat dog and he was huffing away and he must have walked a long way in the scorching heat. But he didn't want a drink. He just rolled over and lay there with a little doggie smile. We didn't know who he belonged to so I told him he'd better go out, coz his mum and dad would be looking for him. But instead he wandered into the loungeroom and parked himself in front of the television.

My sister and I just gawked at him in shock. I mean, he was just sitting there like he owned the place, so quiet and lazy. We're used to our dog Harry, who never wanders around, he bounces. He's never quiet, he's constantly making whimpery "talking" noises. The only time he sat still was on New Years Eve, when he ran inside and hid under a pillow while the fireworks rattled the sky like gunfire.

So we sat there talking to Mystery Dog, while Harry threw himself at the window to make sure we were still aware of his presence. We talked about how cool it would be if this quiet old dog could be ours, a friend for Harry, maybe then Harry would settle down a bit! We tried to get it to roll over so we could see if it was he or she, but it was so fat and covered in thick fluffy fur, we couldn't find out. It took us about 20 minutes to convince the dog to get up and come outside and meet Harry. They sniffed each others' arses for awhile, then Harry became his usual annoying self, pouncing on the dog, wrapping his paws around its neck, nibbling its ankles. Then they chased each other all over the yard, and ran through the sprinklers. Mystery Dog would put its mouth right over the jet of water and snaps its jaws as it gulped the water. Harry stood back and watched in awe, coz Harry's a bit of a pussy really, and stays far away from the sprinklers.

We watched our new little family play while we made plans to renovate Harry's kennel, worked out how much extra it'd cost to feed another dog, decided the new hound needed a haircut, and I suggested if it was a girl we should call it Holly, coz it reminded me of my little sister, kinda sweet and serene. We had it all worked out when we heard a female voice yelling, "Olly! Olly? Where are you?"

Nooo! This could not be! We were tempted to stash the dog in the garden shed and play dumb, but Olly ran up to the gate and wagged its tail at his mum.

"So there he is! I've been looking everywhere..."

"He just walked into our house," said my sister. "So it's a he, eh? We couldn't tell coz of all that fur."

I was pretty proud that I was only one letter off guessing its name. But was pouty that we had to hand it back over. We walked him back through the house and out to his Mum, but he sat on our doorstep and started howling, and of course Harry joined in. It was a most pathetic chorus.

"Looks like they've become friends," said Olly's mum. "I only live three doors down, maybe Harry can come over and play some time?"

Three doors down? So much for the dogs great pilgrimage.

So there was much barking and howling and goodbyes and we parted company. The three us sulked about it for hours. Harry missed his new friend, we missed how much less annoying Harry was when Olly was around. So if anyone's got a fat old dog they want to rent out, let me know, eh?

Censored! Revised portrait due to unbearably hot 37 degree kitty-killing weather.

So yesterday I did something really bloody stupid, which is not entirely uncharacteristic of me. I arrived at work half asleep, being Monday and all. I went to put my lunch in the fridge, and what a pathetic lunch it was. Our pantry had hit rock bottom so all I had were a few half-stale crispbread and a suspect looking piece of cheese. On opening the fridge, I was hit with that usual WHOOSH wave-of-stink that comes when a dozen people shove random things in there and forget about them for months on end.

But I am actually one of the worst offenders. When I opened the fridge I saw one of those frosty-coloured tupperware containers and realised it was my potato salad from the Monday before. I'd opened it up at the time and thought, "Blah, salad. I want a cheese and bacon roll from Bakers Delight" then promptly threw it back into the fridge. A week later, it didn't appear to be too healthy. From what I could tell without opening the container, it was all pink and green from various mouldy things. So I threw the container into the bottom of the bin and covered it with a pile of old Canberra Times

Then it's lunchtime, and a colleague of mine goes up to the fridge to get her lunch out. There's the sound of much shuffling and rearranging of things then "Who stole my lunch?!"

"What!?" we all said. "Noone would steal your lunch."

"I TELL YOU, it's not in there!"

This woman is a particularly stern kind of lady and within minutes she was charging around like the Spanish Inquisition, grilling everyone to find the supposed Lunch Thief. So I went up to the fridge to look for it myself. Our fridge is only one of those crappy little bar ones, but we manage to pack a lot in there. I sat on the floor and started pulling things out of it. Sandwiches, wine bottles, a tub of margarine that was there when I started over a year ago, pieces of fruit slowly turning green, three jars of salsa. Finally there was only one thing left. One of those frosty-coloured tupperware containers. It had my mouldy old salad in it.

"I can't understand how it just could have DISAPPEARED!" ranted my colleague. But I could understand, it's quite easy for your lunch to disappear when some moron throws it into the bin.

I could have explained what I did to this woman and offered to buy her some lunch and perhaps she could have forgiven me in a few months time. But that would be okay for someone not quite so gutless. I fished the container out of the bin, wiped off a few headlines smeared on it from the newspaper, then put it back into the fridge.

"Hey, I found your lunch!"

She charges over. "Where? Where?"

"Erm... it was right here. Under this stuff. See?"

"I swear I looked there!"

"Well, there it is. So... here you go."

"Hmmph! It's not very cold!"

"Well. You know those bar fridges. They don't work that well."

In my usual guilt-ridden Make Mountains Out Of Molehills way, I tossed and turned about this all night. What if she drops dead of food poisoning? What if she works out what happened?

"Yeah, I am sure she'd think to herself, 'hey maybe some idiot threw my lunch in the bin and covered it with newspapers then stealthily returned it to the fridge hours later!'. Not likely," my sister reassured me.

The woman in question appears to be in good health today, thank goodness.

When you start seeing cars like this around town, you know it's Summernats Car Festival time again. Urrrgh. I may have to go out there and snavel myself a sexy guy with a V8, flannel shirt and dubious odour.