Happy Birthday, Faith

(This is jointly written by Carolyn and Magi - where's that joint gone, Carolyn?  What, you gave it to Faith?  Oh, dear!)

Happy Birthday, Faith

That's it, Carolyn!  The very last of the Vegemite toasted sandwich gourmets have left the building with Elvis.  And I've finally locked the doors of the Chat & Connections Garden Café.  Just as the sun's come up!  You might have noticed that Faith left a bit earlier on ... that she was down in the dumps.  No, I don't mean that she slid down the coal chute into The Devil's Tea House.  Mind you, as I said to Harold, my friend the Headless Horseman from Slaughter Valley, it might do Faith the world of good if she did pop into the tea house.  General Isaac Gunship, USAF (retired), is always there, and he's fixated on anything associated with the colour blue - and Faith was an officer in the USAF.

I suspect that's where Faith first met Father Jockstrap McHaggis (defrocked), just after she fled from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and joined the boys in blue.  She probably met Jockstrap just before he was posted as the Padre to that godforsaken airfield in the wastelands of Alaska, where then Colonel Gunship was the Commanding Officer.  Which goes to show what a small world it is.  And a crazy one!  Imagine Colonel Gunship having Father Jockstrap blessing the spy balloons that they sent aloft from there in the hope they'd drift over Siberia and snap away at the Russian polar bears.  But then was then!  Now, I have it from good sources - Luigi, the Vampire, no less - that General Gunship is keen to take Faith flying in the aptly named, His-ben-Her hot-air balloon that he owns.  It'd cheer Faith up to go with him.  He's such a dear old fart - though I blame the flatulence on the Beelzebub's Beloved Barbecue Baked Beans, used to inflate the balloon.

But be all that as it may, Carolyn.  I think Faith is feeling a bit blue because it's her 39^th birthday today.  But you wouldn't think she's that old - she looks years younger.  Yes, Carolyn, she does have grown-up children; but do remember that she was a child bride!  That's what Luigi told me, and Vampires seldom get things wrong.  But be that as it may, as well.  I think Faith is also feeling a tad low because she thinks her birthday will go unnoticed by her friends on Gather.  The truth is, they're probably unaware of it - you know how unassuming Faith is.  And that's despite her work being featured in umpteen groups - and on Gather's front page, although we won't go into that brazen gossip of outrageous lies!

So what do you reckon, Carolyn, shall we throw her a surprise party?  Send out emails now right now for everyone to come along?  Okay, that's settled!  What about inducting her into the Gather Hall of Fame?  Oh, you didn't know that such existed, you say?  Actually, nor did I.  But what the hell!  Let's start the damned thing!  We'll create the Hall of Fame - not infamy, mind!  And we'll install Faith and you as the first members.  You can do all the work in there, as well as keeping an eye on Faith.  I'm far too busy as the Vegemite Correspondent to be active in there.  But, if you like, I'll be the invisible gatekeeper, with Harold and Luigi as my backup SWAT team.

We'd better not allow self-nominations; otherwise the Hall will soon become chock-a-block with legends in their own minds.  An unseen weirdo gatekeeper is bad enough without the visible ones as well.  So, people can only nominate others to be inducted and listed on the honour board - giving compelling reasons why the nominee should be accepted.

What do you think about all of that, Carolyn?

Magi, as always I will bow to your wisdom and sageness (sagacity? sagability? saggy breeches?) in this regard.  Hall of Fame... Faith?  Bloody brilliant idea that.  Sign me up!  (I don't have to actually do anything do I?  Just asking...)

For me personally, I didn't realise Faith was anywhere near her early-late-mid-thirties.  Thinking of her, as we all do, as one of the more frisky gatherers, I can forget for days at a time that she's longer in the tooth than we often realise.  Mind you, I can also forget for days at a time what my cash card PIN is or whether I've bathed recently, but that's by the by.

I am impressed Magi, with your legion of side-kicks there who could add something unique, not to mention terrifying, to Faith's special day.  I keep forgetting, it today - it's morning, already.  Anyway, with her pick of the charming chaps from the Devil's Tea House I can't see her being lonely.  Yet, there's a part of me that can't help but feel there's a certain elegance to solitude when the alternative is something that drags itself out of the dungeon dimensions, dripping despicable desires.

But this could be just my present mood.  You well know that a few deep inhalations of all things Hugh Jackman-ish can get me gooey on guys, blissful about blokes and mooning over men again.  And this is perhaps what I wish most for our mate, Faith, as she celebrates her birthday.  Wishing her the belief that the best bonks are before us, that the 'men' in menopause isn't merely a mannered misnomer, that we can still score squidges even if we cant squish into a squeezy size six skirt, that wrinkles aren't really a retardant to right randy rogering.  That having realised Prince Charming is fictional, we may yet find ourselves a well-meaning court jester with whom to while away those long summer evenings.

Perhaps Faith's best chance of this is a long journey to a certain Land Down Under. Because you know what Magi?  Fair dinkum cobber, I reckon Faith would make one hell of a dinky-di Orstralian!  Of course, for her to be a bonzer, ridgy-didge Sheila, she'd have to chuck away all of that in the heat of the night, deep southern belle stuff.  We don't want any hilly-billy bludgers strumming a banjo and wandering around the black stump at the back of Bourke - swinging a billy or a bull-roarer is the go, way out there.  Nor do we want someone throwing a yabby onto the Barbie by the billabong when we say, "Struth, stone the flamin' crows, Mate, don't come the raw prawn with me, you bloody wanker!"

So Faith would have to go to night school to learn to speak proper Strine.  That way she'd know that a bush cocky isn't like a bird in the bush or like George Dubya searching for Weapons of Mass Delusion or a bush lawyer arguing over a bushman's breakfast.  And that she'd know what we mean when we reckon she should listen to the bush telegraph about the cockeyed bob in her neck of the woods putting the wind up the spinifex grasshoppers; and that she'd better cover the damper and the cocky's delight before the squatters, sundowners and Poms arrive for a free nosh up.

And she needs to know that being true blue has nothing at all to do with the colour blue, whereas Bluey is usually a bloke with red hair, as well as being known as a red-head rabbit rooter.  It goes without saying that Faith would also have to learn to smack her lips after wolfing down her toasted Vegemite sandwiches, and not to chunder after a XXXX tinny or two.  And then not to drive her Toorak tractor

Strewth, Magi, it'd be easier all round if we forget about that!  It'd take forever.  I reckon we should just start the Hall of Fame, induct Faith as the only member and then close the group.  I mean, what's the bloody point of a Hall of Fame if just about anyone can be inducted into it?  We can start a Hall of Infamy for that!

Hello, hello, speak of the top notcher!  Here comes the party girl.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Faith!