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Ep:15. Hot Mess, Banana Cakes, and Existential Crises
19 Plays14 days ago
Welcome back to the chaos, the glory, and the mulberry bush trauma that is Semi Precious! It’s Episode 15 — even if we weren’t totally sure at the start. Your favourite hot mess express (aka Jade) and semi-glamorous lounge queen (aka Amber) are officially back after their longest gap year ever. This week: bus tours, surprise periods, lost cats (RIP Jet), and life reflections from Jade's wardrobe and Amber's bed.
KEY THEMES:
- Video Killed the Radio Stars: First ever video recording attempt — lipstick vs. mulberry pruning realness.
- Life Updates: Amber moves house again (because of course she did) and Jade's wardrobe is officially classified as a natural disaster zone.
- Banana Cakes and Dog Poo: The elegant balance between home baking and stepping in literal sh*t.
- Tour Hell: Jade’s Sri Lanka tour from hell — 28 people, gaslighting tour guides, and bakery brawls.
- Existential Crisis, Party of Two: Amber faces her "oh crap, I’m turning 50" moment.
- Sloth Productivity: Amber rebrands laziness as a lifestyle. Bed + pyjamas + to-do list = winning.
- Telecom Torture: Amber's attempt to upgrade her phone turns into a hostage negotiation with Telstra.
- Life Lessons from Cyndi Lauper: Girls just wanna have fundamental rights, thank you very much.
- Semi-Precious Moments: Period disasters, text message roulette, and professional F-ups (with snacks missed and clients abandoned).
“Nobody wants a gaslighting Dr. Seuss as their tour guide.”
- “We’re not semi-precious anymore. We’re just rocks. Rubble, maybe.”
- “Mulberry tree? It’s a metaphor. It’s always a metaphor.”
- "Sloth productivity: because getting sht done from bed is still getting sht done."
- "Spoiler alert: If I leave you anything in my will, it’s room and board. No house for you."
Connect with Jade:
If you are wanting to understand more about Jade and her counselling practice or ADHD Coaching you can visit Awaken Insights, Awaken ADHD or on socials Instagram.
jade@awakeninsights.com.au
Connect with Amber:
If you’ are curious about Amber and her brand agency you can visit The Edison Agency or follow her on socials LinkedIn or Instagram
CREDITS
Producer: Amber Bonney and Jade Bonney
Sound Editing: Jade Bonney
Social Content Creator: Amber Bonney
Creative Director: Amber Bonney
To follow and subscribe to your mildly unhinged SEMI-PRECIOUS hosts, you can connect via Instagram
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Transcript
Acknowledgment of Traditional Land Owners
00:00:00
Speaker
This podcast is recorded on the lands of the Boonwurrung country and we wish to acknowledge them as traditional owners. We recognise First Peoples of Australia as the original storytellers of this country and pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging.
Introduction and Podcast Setup
00:00:16
Speaker
You are listening to a semi-precious podcast hosted by an uncut and unpolished sisters Amber and Jade.
00:00:26
Speaker
And we're on. Oh. hi welcome to Nobody Knows What Episode It Is. Of Semi Precious. And Precious. It is 15, I did look it up.
00:00:39
Speaker
You did look it up. But I'd already titled this. It was while, but we weren't sure. True. And I just realised that down the bottom here we have a little hand signal that we can press to raise our hand instead of just talking over each other.
00:00:54
Speaker
I mean, we could actually just raise our hand, I guess. We could just physically raise our hand. Just physically raise our hand because we're actually recording the video for the first time.
Pre-Recording Chaos
00:01:06
Speaker
Amber decided that would be a good idea um and she has lipstick on and is looking lovely in her beautiful bed. Bed, couch, what is that?
00:01:17
Speaker
That's my bed, yeah. That's your bed. And I am in my wardrobe that has lots of clothes that are not even hung up and I've just finished pruning a mulberry tree and I'm not looking quite as glamorous.
00:01:33
Speaker
I think this actually reflects our relationship. meet what Me looking scruffy with clothes falling out my wardrobe.
00:01:42
Speaker
You've got the hot mess going on in the background. In a cavernous cave. should honest. Just be pruned my wardrobe and see what you like and don't like, what needs to be pruned ah from the wardrobe.
00:01:55
Speaker
Just spring clean while we're here. I was on the lounge um donning a heat pack literally five minutes ago and I thought I'm just going – I had every intention of recording um and I'm like I'm just going to go make up free and then I looked at myself and went actually – I can't.
00:02:14
Speaker
I'm looking so terrible that I don't even want to stare at myself in the video. So your last few minutes before jumping on to record this were going and making yourself look beautiful.
00:02:26
Speaker
Do you want to hear what I did in the five minutes leading up? Outside of pruning the mulberry tree? Yeah. Then I made a quick banana cake but realised we also had lots of fejoas on the tree so I went out and picked some tree.
00:02:40
Speaker
No, picked some fejoas. Please don't say fejoas because it really sounds like something else. Nobody wants a fejoa tree. I picked some and I stepped in dog poo.
00:02:52
Speaker
and that wasn't very pleasant. And then I realised I still had a lot of mulberry tree prunings all over me, so I tried to pick those off. ah Then I ran inside and I kind of barricaded myself in with a whole heap of play cushions to try and muffle the sound and then realised somebody had let the dog out, so then I had to un-barricade, run back out, yell at the kids to put the dog back inside who was barking.
00:03:17
Speaker
and and then rebuild yourself a fort. Is this... Yeah, then I had to rebuild a fort and then once I'd done that, my husband called and said, well, if you're going to be in the room, can you get my computer out of the room because he's not home?
00:03:29
Speaker
So then I unforted again and went back out, dropped the computer off.
Podcast Reflections and Themes
00:03:35
Speaker
Yeah. So for anyone thought that I was just a heinous bitch for using the analogy that you in the hot mess wardrobe and me in lovely pristine background was a metaphor for the two of us.
00:03:49
Speaker
I think you've disproven the point. Yeah. She's not a bitch. She's just being honest. Just being observant. um I don't know how you make cakes so quickly.
00:04:02
Speaker
you make cakes quicker than anyone. You make a cake from scratch quicker than most people could actually make the packet cake. I'm just concerned here because I didn't have enough self-raising flour.
00:04:14
Speaker
So then I had to mix in normal flour and then I felt like I was on the clock because you'd said, like, let's do it now. And I'm like, oh, crap, this time.
00:04:25
Speaker
So then went and got the baking powder and I just kind of like threw some in on top. So we'll just see see what happens. think I'm just not a fan afraid to fail at the baking.
00:04:40
Speaker
ah wish I wish felt that way. I did candy some walnuts to go on top. Of course you did. Of course you candied some goddamn walnuts right before you jumped online.
00:04:54
Speaker
I did, but I haven't showered. a bit smelly and clearly just living in my wardrobe.
00:05:04
Speaker
Now, can I just say according to... um Spotify, the last time we uploaded an episode was the 3rd of October 2024. Didn't we do a Christmas? We didn't do a Christmas one. We didn't end up doing it, did we?
00:05:23
Speaker
We didn't, ah So that's a bit terrible. All right, no, and we did Christmas one in 2023. Can I Before you go blaming me, I feel like this is exactly where you are heading, um but this is all my fault.
00:05:41
Speaker
So one of the things, it has been quite a while since we recorded, it is predominantly my fault. I will take responsibility. But I thought we should set ourselves a challenge and just record every week.
00:05:57
Speaker
Let's do it. Just a half hour. Now that we are not as precious about, well, clearly... Given your background, we're we're losing, we're even beyond semi-precious, I think.
00:06:11
Speaker
What would be the one step beyond semi-precious? Demi?
00:06:17
Speaker
don't know. We're pretty much just a rock at this stage, right? this name There's no gems here, no semi-precious gems. There's no gems. We're rubble. There's pebbles,
Life Transitions and Adjustments
00:06:29
Speaker
rocks. But I like rocks, so that's okay.
00:06:32
Speaker
Well, you collect rocks. What have you been up to? Well, ah since October I moved house again. feel like I moved house every year.
00:06:45
Speaker
I seem to have moved house a lot, five times or something in the last, don't know, three or four years. ah So moved into my first ever apartment living and so that's been reasonably chaotic because everything's kind of in – storage and if it's not in storage it's in someone's garage it's not in garage it's in the work studio or in a box so don't know where anything is but that's fun I'm enjoying living in the city you're not exactly living out of boxes though I think there's a nice simplicity about it I kind of wish somebody would come and take half of the shit out of my house and shove it in storage and then burn that storage
00:07:32
Speaker
Why don't you just put it into a skip? That feels like a lot of um unnecessary kind fuel getting it to and from the place, just getting it into a skip.
00:07:43
Speaker
Okay, but it's not my stuff, so I kind Oh, that's true. I don't want to throw other people's things away. I just want it to accidentally burn down, but nobody is at risk of burning down. Okay.
00:07:55
Speaker
Anyway, sorry, that was a bit of a sidestep from your apartment living. I'm quite enjoying apartment living. yeah you What do you like about it? That nobody can easily get to your front door?
00:08:06
Speaker
Yes, yeah. I do feel quite safe. um I like having a view. So we have a view and i like sitting on the lounge and just staring out.
00:08:18
Speaker
I do like the simplicity of there's not that much to do. Although I would tell you that what really fucks me off is because we have the two pets. A big silly golden retriever and your big fat cat.
00:08:32
Speaker
Yeah, so when you walk in the door, there's not a lot of space and they come running around the corner if they're if the dog's not with us and then you're trying to get in the door with bags and you're clamouring over pets and then everyone's... There's lots of noise and then I shout at them and swear at them. So it's not a graceful entrance into the house.
00:08:51
Speaker
um But other than that, I enjoy, as you said, the simplicity. It's good. Yeah, I feel like that's a very small problem given... that's a I have a reasonable sign of entry and it still feels that chaotic.
00:09:06
Speaker
Still feels chaotic, yeah. I also love just jumping on a tram and getting somewhere quickly or walking. I have been doing a lot more walking, which is good. Yeah, that's really good. What else? I'm planning my big milestone birthday, so...
00:09:19
Speaker
I started to build a ah Spotify playlist yesterday. that was fun. All Who's on the playlist? Who's on the playlist? Don't ask me spontaneously. um Alicia Keys is on the playlist.
00:09:32
Speaker
um Missy Elliott on the playlist. Cindy Lauper is definitely on the playlist. We just saw Cindy Lauper. Oh, yeah, we did. um Gwen Stefani. It's a real combination.
00:09:42
Speaker
Yeah. Lily Allen. Is this like karaoke style? Are we doing karaoke? Well, we are later, but not. This is for the... for dinner gold frapp so can i record your karaoke and upload it to the semi-precious um look um it'd be on brand messy by that point it would be it's definitely going to be a semi-precious evening i can say that much so i've been doing that how do you feel about this milestone birthday
00:10:15
Speaker
Well, I was feeling actually pretty good until I started to realise what it actually meant. So I was feeling pretty good. know this sounds absolutely ridiculous because it was like an epiphany for me, but I think it's just what normal people think.
00:10:30
Speaker
I'm fine with turning 50 because I feel like I've done a lot and lived a lot and I'm... You're ready to go out to pasture. Yeah.
00:10:42
Speaker
Sometimes when I looked at myself in the mirror before I jumped online, I looked like I was ready to get out to the pasture. No, but i have been starting to have anxious thoughts about getting my fears in order or but how much time I don't have left and making sure my children are going to be okay.
00:11:07
Speaker
gee So it's less about having turned 50 As in, oh, my God, I want my youth back but more like, oh, God, I've still got things I need to do and now I'm running out a time.
00:11:18
Speaker
Right. So I think I spent nearly the whole year just planning holidays, ah getting my will in order, which, as I said, I had appointment this week. You did send me. No, not getting a house. Not getting a house. She sent me a lovely message, anything you want me to put you down for in my estate. And I'm like, is there any chance of a house? And she said no.
00:11:41
Speaker
You said room and said I'll accommodate room and board for you somewhere. You're not housing a lost kitten. This is not.
00:11:55
Speaker
Okay, she won't give me a house. Anyway, so bit of a existential concerns in the sense of how long have I got and what do I need to to do to do. And then how do i enjoy myself in the process?
00:12:13
Speaker
I wrote to-do list because I had um a few days off this week and on my to-do list I wrote relax three times and then I wrote have fun and my daughter thought they were both absolutely hilarious and killed herself laughing.
00:12:29
Speaker
Like, oh, mum, I love that you try. love that you try. You tried. I'm relaxing but how can I do it more productively and hence your sloth mode? Sloth productivity.
00:12:42
Speaker
Yeah. Good. I like that. um For anyone who does not follow me on social, I wrote a short post about the benefits of sloth productivity, which is basically where...
00:12:56
Speaker
You're still getting through your shit checklist of random things to do ah but you're doing it from bed in pyjamas. So it's like quasi-relaxing, quasi-sort of productivity.
Technology and Household Roles
00:13:11
Speaker
There's a little bit of dopamine here, especially if you put things on there that are very easy to achieve. I thought I did put lots of things on my list that were easy to achieve. Like, can I just tell you my complete disdain for telecommunication companies?
00:13:26
Speaker
I needed a new phone. So I decided to jump online to the chat function to find out when my contract was up because it was not present on the app.
00:13:37
Speaker
This is the Telst chat. Anyway. Finally realised it was like four days previously. I was up, I'd get a new phone. I won't bore you with the details, but two hours later and I had ordered the phone, gone through all of the checks, it was going to be sent here, ba blah, blah, blah.
00:13:57
Speaker
And then they say to me, i need to pass you on to another team member. So then I get some random team member, Daisy, because the situation was escalated. What the hell? There was no communication to say, hey, I need to check something.
00:14:10
Speaker
Anyway, as it turned out, after another 40 minutes with Daisy, the ABN that has been on my Telstra account is the very first ABN as a sole trader I had many, many years ago, like 13 years ago.
00:14:24
Speaker
And even though the phone is in the business account's name, ah that does not match the ABN. For the past eight years, nobody seems to have noticed. So after all of that, when I had literally given them all the details, phone was arriving in 24 hours.
00:14:41
Speaker
They've had to escalate it and that's been three phone calls and only apparently one person in the southern hemisphere knows how to do this. Can I just say, you said you weren't going to bore us with all the details and then you went ahead. But did bore you with the details. Yeah.
00:14:56
Speaker
Okay. Okay. ah Look, people can skip past or anything like me on a podcast to skip past the point. Time and a half. So anyway, that was annoying because I thought that was going to be an easy checkoff and it was not an easy checkoff. I never think they're going to be easy, those things. So think I'm prepared for the torture of them.
00:15:17
Speaker
Do know what I started listening to as I was pruning the mulberry tree? And can I just say, I got myself some battery operated. That's not a metaphor, by the way. That is like literally a mulberry tree.
00:15:30
Speaker
That's not any kind of personal hygiene. That's not girl talk for us. and Just pruning my mulberry tree. I was just thinking of the silkworms because the silkworms are the ones that eat the mulberry tree.
00:15:47
Speaker
Please do not mention silkworm or eating of anything. And your mulberry tree. My actual mulberry tree. Okay, so pruning the mulberry tree, the actual mulberry tree in my yard.
00:16:01
Speaker
um I started listening to Annabelle Crabb's The Wife Drought. Oh, yes. Have you read it yet? I haven't read it no.
00:16:14
Speaker
yeah it's interesting. You know, given that I that i speak about the housewife role, A lot, always fondly saying I would like a housewife um and she speaks about the housewife.
00:16:27
Speaker
I've to stop saying that though. ah used to say that all the time but now I can't say that because i don't want to be implying that that's women are servitude.
00:16:38
Speaker
Right, but she talks about the housewife as being a role not gendered. Right, gotcha. yeah So all of the duties of... what a housewife does almost as a position description rather than it being a gendered specific clinical role.
00:16:56
Speaker
And that that's what I want. So people that... You want a butler, in other words. Yeah, people that are able to can, can you know, pay for the services to, you know, have there their clothes washed and their, you know, or their children cared for or their gardens...
00:17:15
Speaker
maintained or their mulberry bushes trimmed right yeah um there's a big market surely there's a gym's mulberry bush trimming service yeah don't know this is feeling really uncomfortable um Jim's Brazilians.
00:17:33
Speaker
But it's not just a whinge about um behalf of women. I'm only like, you know just past the introduction, but she's talking about men leaving the work workforce is also a struggle. You know, it's been a lot of energy getting women into the workforce but haven't really addressed men kind of getting out of the workforce or working less.
00:17:52
Speaker
m It's not as acceptable. Anyway, it's going to be interesting. Read, I think. Many of the issues that I work through with clients every day. So since October you've done the mulberry bush and. About 20 times.
00:18:06
Speaker
It grows like wildfire, that thing. It's Out of control. And now it's starting to molt, shed. Hold on. No, let's let' but's not continue. The leaves are changing colour.
00:18:20
Speaker
it's That's perimenopause, love. yeah so much um It's It's the season.
00:18:29
Speaker
Yeah, we're not getting any better.
Sri Lanka Tour Misadventures
00:18:31
Speaker
What have I done since October? Well, let's just talk about your trip because that's recent. Recent. So this week I got back from a trip with some friends to Sri Lanka, went with Claire, who everybody knows, Claire's sister, everybody assuming anybody's listened to the podcast, Claire's sister Claire.
00:18:54
Speaker
and And another friend of mine. And it was great. I also am not sure that I am built for tours.
00:19:06
Speaker
So it was a tour and a big bus. It took you going on that trip to tell you that? I could have told you that. Yes. Even before you finished saying the word tour, which is only a single syllable, so right at the beginning.
00:19:20
Speaker
Okay. Well, the thing is that I... I figured somebody else is doing all the planning. a That is true. Literally Claire's sister booked it.
00:19:32
Speaker
So I just had to vaguely agree on the dates, which I forgot or didn't double check were actually over Easter. And I got in a lot of trouble from my 10 year old for being away for Easter.
00:19:43
Speaker
But again, also hands off approach. Somebody else is organizing this. It's all good. and And yes, I do want somebody to organise things. When you're going away with other people, though, it is helpful.
00:19:55
Speaker
ah tour can be helpful. Yes, tour can be helpful. However, 28 people on a bus and I don't know, they try and jam too many things in. i don't need to cover that much ground.
00:20:10
Speaker
I was also pretty fatigued and exhausted. How jewellery-making masterclasses did you attend? I didn't attend any but I would have loved to attend one because the honeymooners, shout out to them if they listen, they attended a jewellery-making class and both came away with this. They booked it themselves, came away with this beautiful silver ring that they made and I was very jealous because that looked amazing. But, yeah, they were there were too many, probably too many sites, too much distance covered, too much time in a bus for my liking.
00:20:46
Speaker
Did you get sick? I would be so ill on a bus. We were only, well, I was only kind of sick when we were heading down from a really kind of high Mountain.
00:20:57
Speaker
Were you drinking beer from a shoe at this point? No, but we had had a bit of a pub crawl the night before, so I was a little bit seedy. You were seedy.
00:21:09
Speaker
But I did also look down at my phone for a little bit and that wasn't so great. What did you think I wouldn't like about a tour? um Every aspect of a tour. The people...
00:21:21
Speaker
Yeah, don't like people. The best part of this trip was actually the people in the end. ah Once I recovered from the shock of being around that many people, um the people were great.
00:21:34
Speaker
We had really good laugh. ah Sorry, people, yes? People, are like just the touristy things where they drag you along to look at someone's uncle's cousin's ah shop tea ceremonies the yeah you know where they you sort of feel obliged to buy things yeah yeah we did go to the um to those obligatory things and they they were okay but yeah probably too much the The hardest thing for me was, and I didn't realise this, but the not knowing what was happening next.
00:22:12
Speaker
Our bus driver, even though there was a vague itinerary. i don't like vague itineraries in general. When someone else is at the control of it. The first morning I'd had about an hour's sleep and he took us into this very dingy sort of conference room and said, I'll just do a quick briefing.
00:22:35
Speaker
40 minutes later and I still had no idea what the hell he was talking about. There were talks of envelopes. There was talks of tipping and not tipping.
00:22:47
Speaker
And it's like everything he said, he would then say five things that counted that. And that set the scene for the entire trip. I felt gaslit the entire trip. He'd say one thing.
00:22:58
Speaker
I started recording him so that I could, like, listen again. Chat GBT him or just...
00:23:06
Speaker
I've got no idea what you're saying. You're saying we're going to lunch in 20 minutes, but we won't be having lunch for three hours. But when we do have lunch, we'll be getting off the bus, but we'll be having lunch on the bus.
00:23:17
Speaker
On the bus. It's pretty much how every single day went all the time. I've never had my mind blown like this on a regular basis, and it became so infuriating. And my my friend Fran, she's like, cool, go with the flow. And I'm like, I'm going kill him.
00:23:34
Speaker
Like i can't. Did you do um the green eggs and ham tour? Because I feel like that must be.
00:23:42
Speaker
It felt like that. It was like, and you'd go and ask him a question to clarify. And he wouldn't listen to your question. He'd just go, yes, yes, we'll say, yeah, to let you know later.
00:23:54
Speaker
He also didn't want us very much going outside confines of the hotel once he delivered us there, as if we were his important package and we might break or die if we stepped outside.
00:24:10
Speaker
when he was off duty. So he would warn us, it's not safe out there, don't go out, have dinner in the buffet, I've organised it, very good deal for you have have dinner there. I'm like, I don't want to eat at the buffet, I want to go out. So i was quite rebellious. and ah does like something Maybe from day one, tried to go with the flow but it was very hard Very hard know. Nobody wants a gaslighting Dr. Seuss as their tool guard. No, and yet he was also very nice and very well educated, like double masters degree. wasn't a bad fella.
00:24:49
Speaker
He was a nice person, but he didn't make any sense and it was utter chaos the whole time. So whether I liked the idea of kind of being taken to the beautiful places and Sri Lanka was just beautiful.
00:25:03
Speaker
But I do feel like I saw more of it from... but behind the bus window men actually in person. Were they clean windows? Because that would bother me.
00:25:14
Speaker
ah Yeah, the windows were fine. However, right at the front, I went up to the front because I was feeling a bit nauseous and they had this kind of mirrored stuff on the side so you couldn't quite see out of them.
00:25:25
Speaker
But the funny thing about the bus is right at the end we were saying maybe it's a social experiment. Like maybe this whole thing is a social experiment because we were all feeling quite...
00:25:36
Speaker
like confused and like he'd say one thing and the other and we're like, you know, is this like how how you're behaving and how you're going to respond to these very confusing messages and never know whether you're coming or going.
00:25:47
Speaker
And also we get to like 2.30 in the afternoon and the bus hadn't stopped for lunch and you still didn't know where you were going to eat the last day. It's 2 o'clock, 2.30, we're all starving. And he's like, oh, well, you could wait till we get to the hotel, which still wasn't clear whether it was five minutes away or two hours away, ah or I could just stop at a bakery.
00:26:07
Speaker
And we're like, just give us the goddamn bakery. Yes, the bakery. will eat anything at this point. And alongside this bus tour was the other bus tour by the same company and we were kind of always just ahead or behind of this group.
00:26:22
Speaker
We never really came into contact with them though. We pull up to this bakery and they are also this bakery. There are two doors to the bakery.
00:26:35
Speaker
They had started lining up from one door and we all pile out of the bus ravenous knowing there's now... like almost 60 people to get fed from this one small bakery. akerary We go in the other door and they turn into vicious ravenous wolves because they're so angry that we've come in the other door And we're like, well, there's two people serving. Can we just like do a one? No. Like people were, I got elbowed.
00:27:07
Speaker
I got like actually side, like get out of my way. One person said, just grab all of it so they have nothing left. And like there was vicious. Another woman got into a full confrontation with a man going, how dare you?
00:27:21
Speaker
And so we've got this whole massive feistiness and I'm like, I take a couple of pastries and I exit, get back on my bus, scared of this other tour. um And then we get to the next hotel, which was only like 20 minutes down the road.
00:27:37
Speaker
Guess who's there? That bus. Guess what's happening next? They're doing two things. Half of the bus is getting out of our bus and joining their bus immediately.
00:27:49
Speaker
to go to the next hotel because I was flying out that night. The other half of the bus are joining their other half and getting on a small boat to go to an exclusive hotel across a river.
00:28:01
Speaker
The two buses that have just been brawling and fighting at a bakery 20 minutes earlier. I'm like, come on, tell me this isn't a social experiment. and Tell me this isn't.
00:28:13
Speaker
Yeah, so that was fun. Big brother. And then we got on the bus, right, the reason I said that, we got on the bus. Their bus was way better. There were seats reclined. They had individual seats. They had little footstools. They had but a toilet on their bus.
00:28:29
Speaker
Their bus was like top of the line and ours was not. So then we got to also have bus envy. I wonder if they just paid for a better tune of tour with a better bus. No, same tour. Our last hotel was a terrible hotel and it wasn't the one that was on the itinerary.
00:28:48
Speaker
They were in the one that was like on the itinerary, lovely beach cabanas. wasn't like super fancy, but ours looked like a dishevelled abandoned building. And then they got us on the bus so we could cross-examine.
00:29:01
Speaker
Oh, you went to that hotel. Oh, we didn't have. ah So, again, war broke out. No, it didn't. That's my story. That's my story. Go to Sri Lanka. But maybe tours are not really set up for, i don't know, neurodivergent people.
00:29:18
Speaker
There were six of us at least, I think, on the bus, neurodivergent individuals. That would have made for some interesting convo. It was. It was funny as we all started to kind of come, like, take our masks off and by the end we were just, you know, in full hysteria.
00:29:33
Speaker
There's four people that weren't. Yeah, mainly Fran, my roommate, who didn't realise how many strange sensory experiences I have.
00:29:46
Speaker
And she shared a room with me for like seven nights. One of them being when I'm a little bit irritated and it was hot, very, very
Inspirations and Influences
00:29:55
Speaker
humid, very hot. So my body was hot and sticky.
00:29:58
Speaker
And then my hair was wet, wet hair touching my sticky, hot body. And my hair tie broke. was the worst experience I could ever, ah can't tell you how irritating it was. It was like the worst extreme version of ick ever.
00:30:16
Speaker
And she's just watching me. I got a shower cap and I put a shower cap on my head to get my hair away. Anyway. nobody have a hairband? i mean I had to go steal Claire's.
00:30:29
Speaker
Of course, I haven't given them back to her and she will never get them back. But actually, I'm wearing the one that I stole from Claire right now. Thanks, Claire. Why did you not have ample hair ties? This feels like a low cost thing be considering.
00:30:44
Speaker
I don't know why I didn't have more hair ties. It was weird because the hair tie I had was like half broken at the beginning. me Not sure. I hate those hair ties. They just go straight the bin. I know. Well, it was a bit chaotic trying to actually leave my house and my business. I imagine.
00:31:00
Speaker
ah You mentioned before Cyndi Lauper. We both went and saw Cyndi Lauper. She's a wrestler. such a good concert. And in that same week I saw the Yayoi Kusama exhibition.
00:31:11
Speaker
So between the two of them, a 93-year-old artist who's still practising and a 73-year-old singing artist who's still touring.
00:31:22
Speaker
I mean, that's pretty impressive. Did it help with your existential... you know, time running out. It does for me because when when I compare, you know, some 70s and 80s individuals, I'm like,
00:31:37
Speaker
I guess life's pretty over by then. And then you see these other individuals you're like, actually, there's heaps of life to be had. There's heaps of life to be had. Yeah. Yeah, it was inspiring. She was good.
00:31:49
Speaker
I like all the work, especially Cindy does. She does a lot of advocating for women and girls and her producing music. and Even trying to add extra syllables into songs where they don't feel fit. Like girls just want to have fundamental rights.
00:32:06
Speaker
I love it. Exactly. It's not lyrical, but. No, you've got to make your content relevant, right?
Humorous Text Message Game
00:32:17
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Because, I mean, when she's singing, girls just want to have fun, the 80s?
00:32:25
Speaker
Yeah. So much has happened. She's so much, you know, we're so much more aware. So now she's singing Girls Just Want to Have Fundamental Rights, Power To It. What kind of other good work is she doing, Ams? Do you want to Well, she just, and she does a lot of producing.
00:32:38
Speaker
She has done, um i think she has her own production company. But, yeah, she sort of produces younger women's work and does a lot of mentoring and,
00:32:50
Speaker
I just love, um you know, firstly her first i heard Brooklyn accent. It's fabulous. And, yeah, she just loves a good story. Her rambling stories were just so rambling fabulous. I loved when she took the camera backstage to do a costume change and they're trying to costume change and she's just, like, still going on with the story.
00:33:13
Speaker
um ah thought we could play a game oh just spin the bottle on our text messages and see where we land and see if it's funny. All right. So are we literally just scrolling yeah and landing? Yeah, scroll and stop.
00:33:28
Speaker
Yeah. All right. You go. do you want to show us your scroll and stop so we know it's actually
Pet Loss and Adjustments
00:33:32
Speaker
happening? I don't I can trust you. Let's just and stop.
00:33:40
Speaker
So i hope it it says, um I'm done with being people's brains. I'm dead. Scared face.
00:33:53
Speaker
Is it me? Yeah, that's you. I've said, I'm sorry, but you should not have been so good at it. It's your fault. The empathy.
00:34:03
Speaker
I'm sorry, but. That's empathy. Yeah.
00:34:09
Speaker
Down with people being people's brains. Okay, still relevant. um Just two messages down. Hey, it's been a big week. Neck feels worse and I feel sick. Only four more clients left for the week.
00:34:21
Speaker
Jet's eating, which is great. Oh, poor Jet. Oh, I lost my cat. We had put my cat down. That has been the hardest thing in the last few weeks.
00:34:33
Speaker
Absolutely for sure. Sorry, Jet, that you're now just um podcast fodder. Podcast fodder, yes. The other cat has stepped up. Everybody be glad to know Rufus has claimed his spot as favourite cat by default of being only cat.
00:34:51
Speaker
He's doing a good job. All right, go, your turn. All right, hang on. All right, so I'm just going to, oh, I feel like I, am I scrolling? No, that's, I can't get it to scroll fast.
00:35:02
Speaker
And stop. I stopped scrolling. Okay, wait, do it again. right, I'll scroll and then you say stop because I started reading the messages and going, did I reply to that? So I got to shake. No, this is not an admin session.
00:35:16
Speaker
People are listening. Well, they're probably not anymore. I'm sorry. I'm like, okay, all right, I'm scrolling. Scroll and stop. You've, like, logged on to CBA. You're paying a bill.
00:35:29
Speaker
No, that's just boring. ah that's inappropriate. I've got one here. It's a photo of um gin. Mm-hmm. And it says, when you can choose between gin and rum, so he makes you both.
00:35:43
Speaker
I love that midweek double par. Oh, it was a Saturday. Yeah. It was a Saturday. There's a lot of animal photos that come from here.
Life Mishaps and Stories
00:35:51
Speaker
Yeah. That seems pretty true. Oh, here's another one. Five clients, no breaks, screaming Violet.
00:35:57
Speaker
That's it. That's the message. All one sentence. Five clients, no breaks, screaming Violet. Five clients, no breaks, screaming Violet. That's it. and That pretty much sums it up.
00:36:08
Speaker
Fun game. Next time I'm just going to collect my favourite ones. Well, one is um you saying you're on a date night and I'm like, oh, and you send all these beautiful photos of your date night.
00:36:19
Speaker
I said, brilliant. And then you said, no, not really. Five minutes in, somebody had a medical emergency. and Oh, yes, that was when someone died at the comedy show.
00:36:32
Speaker
It wasn't very funny. That's dark. That's dark. ah sta It was dark. And we'd had such a lovely start to it and I'd really been looking forward to that. It the comedy gala.
00:36:43
Speaker
was very sad about that. and I know. It was cute. Little photos. And then, no, it all went downhill. But that also is quite common for you.
00:36:54
Speaker
Yeah, for everything to tend to. Maybe common for both of us. All right. Have you got a semi-precious moment? Because I do like the um the scroll and our text messages.
00:37:06
Speaker
ah But have you got a semi-precious moment that you'd like to share? Because I have one. I've had lots. So, yes, let me just tell you this. My daughter played basketball this morning. So it was drive 45 minutes to horse riding, then go straight from horse riding where she gets changed into her basketball gear in the car.
00:37:28
Speaker
and drop off at MSAC. For anyone who's just not familiar with MSAC, it's a big sports swimming aquatic center, so an absolute nightmare to get to. Anyway, drop her off, go and park the car.
00:37:40
Speaker
My husband's there to take her into the court because I've got 10 minutes before the game starts while I'm parking the car. i get out of the car, i realize I'd left my coffee, go back to the car, get my coffee, And then in the process of getting my coffee, decide I will pick up her clothes that she's just strewn all over the front seat of the car.
00:37:58
Speaker
In doing so, forgetting that I had my coffee in my hand. So the coffee has then spilt all over the front seat of the car. while I'm in a hurry. So then I'm frantically finding tissues to clean up the said coffee, finally clean that up, shut the door, back into the thing, then realise I've actually listen left the rest of the coffee in the car so I didn't actually take it with me and I wanted the coffee.
00:38:25
Speaker
But then also on the way I'm like, oh, I really am busting for the toilet thinking I'm just having a bladder moment. No, no. No, I just had an unexpected period. So I'm a pale peach top tucked into very light ice wash colour jeans, which were not suitable in that context anymore. I had two minutes to get into the game.
00:38:48
Speaker
So i then have to zip up my thankfully long puffer jacket which is sort of a bit awkward to sit in, you know, like it's a very puffy puffer jacket and pretend that I wasn't roasting the entire time.
00:39:01
Speaker
ah could have just read that from the text message as my funny text message from you because then I said, oh, you know, got mine too today. Why are you always around light-coloured fabrics?
00:39:15
Speaker
Why? No, I wasn't. Like, I don't know that you should be anywhere near your bed right now. I know. I shouldn't. She likes hotel linen. Awkward and inappropriate.
00:39:26
Speaker
And then I was roasting for the rest of the thing because I couldn't take my jacket off. And, of course, I had nothing with me. It was an unexpected perimenopausal period arrival. Anyway, that was mine. What's yours?
00:39:37
Speaker
Yeah, mine's pretty pretty embarrassing, professionally speaking. I think you're going to know. Is this your going one hour?
00:39:48
Speaker
Shush. So I got home Tuesday about 5 o'clock p.m. from Sri Lanka and woke up Wednesday morning and had an 11 a.m. client, 12 a.m. client, and then I'd moved my 1 o'clock to 1.30
00:40:09
Speaker
And that was going to be an hour and a half session. Then I told Violet, I'll come pick you up from school. And then I'll see my four o'clock and five o'clock and then I'll take you home. So I'm seeing my 1.30 client, which should have finished at three.
00:40:24
Speaker
It's sufficient time to pick up said child. But when I'm in the session, I haven't changed my clock back from daylight savings. And then the clock was on funny angle and my water was there.
00:40:38
Speaker
And even though I was kind of, I was really engaged in the session. So my brain was functioning in that, in that kind of focus part. So just letting you know, we hadn't dropped the ball therapeutically. I was fine there.
00:40:50
Speaker
Mm-hmm. But the kind of dyslexic, dyscalcular brain could not take off the daylight. You hadn't done the count backwards. I couldn't do the count backwards from the daylight savings.
00:41:02
Speaker
But it was also 24-hour clock, so I needed to also take two numbers off Because I still have to do that in my head. There's mental math when I'm looking at a 24 hour clock. And then remove an hour or was I adding an hour?
00:41:17
Speaker
And then it was the half hour that I started. ah couldn't do that and stay connected. and I knew it was a longer session and my body was just all out of whack time zone wise.
00:41:28
Speaker
So when I finally finished thinking I'd finished at three o'clock, she's like, oh, I see we've run over a bit. And I'm like, it's four o'clock. I was meant to pick up my daughter from school.
00:41:40
Speaker
And it wasn't until she left that I realized that meant I went over by an hour and a half, no, an hour.
Future Podcast Plans
00:41:46
Speaker
so i was with her for two and a half hours. And then my next client was waiting in the waiting room. Well, I hadn't even had time to see who it was or get their file because I thought I had time and what about your daughter that was abandoned well lucky it's walking distance from work so when mum didn't arrive she just walked back to the clinic very empathic she felt sorry for me ah and then she and also i was supposed to go and get her snacks and eat lunch myself so now i haven't eaten anything since like nine o'clock
00:42:23
Speaker
It's now 4 o'clock. Haven't got her a snack. She's now just having to wait snackless until 6 o'clock. Well, she's now an admin checking people in who are arriving and filling out the Like there note nobody had any food.
00:42:39
Speaker
Everybody was hungry. i had two more clients. Welcome back from your holiday. I've never done that in my whole life. Yeah. um Is there a policy around not setting timers?
00:42:52
Speaker
like Is it inappropriate to set a timer in session? I don't usually need to. I just kind of glance over and at 10.02 start wrapping wrapping it up. Wrapping it up.
00:43:03
Speaker
All right, people, let's wrap this shit up. I've never had an issue where I'm like, we'll just do an extra hour. What the hell? An extra hour, yeah. My body clock would usually say um something's not right here. I'm tired. I'm getting creaky.
00:43:19
Speaker
need food. This has been two and a half hours nonstop. Thanks for listening. If we do do a weekly, do you want a structured weekly? Or do you want to just hit what we've been doing during the week weekly?
00:43:32
Speaker
Are you asking the audience or me? Because the audience this could be like a not needing to have in the podcast conversation. This could be like a meeting. I don't know. It's called a co-creation, a live brainstorming meeting where everyone gets to participate in the decision-making.
00:43:52
Speaker
Okay, well, if they you know people want to shout out, I say if it's um if it's weekly 30 minutes, then we'll just riff on what's been happening. ramble.
00:44:05
Speaker
Good idea. Which will just be 30 minutes of just the semi-precious moments. That's pretty much what it's going
Conclusion and Farewell
00:44:12
Speaker
to be. That's good. Because anything we talk about usually has the foundation of something very semi-precious.
00:44:21
Speaker
All right, well, I'm going to go and eat my banana cake and maybe prune some more mulberry bushes. It's a lot. It's just going to be some sort of aviation strip by the time you...
00:44:35
Speaker
Don't. The runway. needs a little bit off the top. It's just a bit wild. The mulberry runway. feel like I need to and upload a photo of this actual mulberry tree and the pruning for legitimacy.
00:44:50
Speaker
All right. So until next time. Embrace your uncut and unpolished selves. Adios. Bye, people.
00:45:02
Speaker
This podcast represents the personal opinions of Amber and Jade. No content should be taken as advice recommendations.