Loose Dolly B’day of Islands and Apples

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So Ive been busy the last week, but wanting to write a blog today,  and flicking through the Loose Dolly photo’s – which then inspires my blog for that day – my eye caught the few photo’s i have of one of my Birthday’s –  I would guess at this   being my 24th  birthday in 2004. It is even more special to me now,  as one of my friends is not with us any more from this day. Apples (that’s his name!) was some expert in the Australian special forces, but to me he was simply the craziest man i had ever met . When i first met him he immediately tried to put on a puppetry of the penis show (nothing sexual between us, this was in front of quite a few people!!!) and then tried to make a deal with me to touch ‘it’ but i could wear oven mitts…..Or was always coming to me with an idea for a gravitational experiment we could do…on my boobs…..Or we would go and climb trees and suddenly he had decided to do this naked, in the front yard in Suburbia….He never got anywhere but was a character that was larger than life and tried shock you from the moment you met him. Naturally Loose Dolly wouldn’t blink and eye and come up with witty responses, and try to out ‘shock’ him back. Anyhow – this birthday i remember Apples flew down especially from Townsville and i remember thinking i had only met him 2-3 times but i was so touched that he went to so much effort to celebrate my birthday. All i remember o the Saturday night going out session was that we went to Monistary night club (not a place o worship LOL) and it was messy. We ended up back at Rodney’s as usual on the Sunday and some random who had found his way back to the house was suggesting we all go to this Island where we could have our own private beach – now this meant a lot of people to organise, pack,  drive, ferry and walk which i don’t think has ever been attempted on a Sunday like this but it was one of those days where it just happened – and my friends who hadn’t been out the night before would call and see what was up and would decide to come too. I can’t remember now if the Island was Coochimudlo or Russell island, but it was the most wonderful relaxing afternoon with close friends. That night – ever on a quest to outlast the other, i decided to put on The Muppets movie. it was then when Apples turned to me and said ‘please take this movie off, the Muppets are freaking me out!’, and i celebrated having outlasted this hard to beat fella. Sadly last year Apple’s died tragically in Afghanistan in the helicopter accident – it was major news here and his face was splashed all over the news and papers for days. Somewhere i hope he is relaxing on that beach and staying away from the Muppets. Love this birthday – it is one of the only ones that really stands out to me as with my birthday 12 days before Xmas and working in retail i choose not to really celebrate them now, but im glad i had this one.

The Mint Minge Motor Inn… my place

The Mint Minge Motor Inn – was on the richest street in Brisbane but in the worst house! This place came about when i had my 3 weeks off  over xmas and had to move in that time – well that was the Byron Bay, Heath’s wedding, Summerfield days, etc and before you know it i was down to the last day of business before going back to work after the weekend and hadn’t even thought of moving. This all hit me as we were having a great little gathering at Rod’s Yellow Banyo house and i started to panic – well the crew who were there that day all just rallied around and we had someone on realestate.com looking and this was the first one we saw. We decide to go and see it right there and then, all 6 or 7 of us! We arrive and the agent is showing all 6-7 of us the place, we decide its perfect, drove to my mums to get the necessary documents, applied for the place and were back at Rod’s in a matter of only a few hours to  continue partying as we were earlier. I lived here by myself and loved it – it was painted bright green, had the smallest kitchen that was fire engine red and carpet, yes carpet in the bathroom. Someone once said to me it was like what the imagine a motel room that Marilyn Monroe OD’d and died at, to look like. What was funny is that so many people would squeeze into my tiny 1 bedroom place (you can see in some pics everyone was quite happy to jam into doorways even) . This place along with the Yellow Banyo House was where Loose Dolly will always remember and feel most at home. I’ve posted these pics cause you can see the detail in the room in the back grounds.

The Yellow Banyo House …

I have so many memories that are from the Yellow Banyo house that was Rodney’s that i decided i needed to write about our places in general. HIs place – THE YELLOW BANYO FIBRO – I had helped him move into the yellow place from what we used to call the big house.. the big house was on the opposite side of the street and twice as big. When Rod sold the big house we decided to just move everything over the road by hand and not pack anything. 3 very rainy days later we were still going – Rod always says i proved my friendship that day and since has never asked for help moving house. This house was just beautiful and pretty – yellow paint, white on features and beautiful fuchsia creeping flora that could cover the house. We constantly changed his furniture around – bucket seats in the lounge room and all dark and ‘royal’ theme, or white leather couch and pink shag pile rug…. it was always changing in the lounge room. His kitchen there though would probably be, if i could call anything, my ‘safe’ place. Big table almost filling the room, his cabinet filled with some expensive blue and white crockery behind us,  the 2 doves on the wall, the pink weird light, the bowl of heaps of coins – and just conversations and cups of tea…..Bliss! I had my own room here and always felt home in my bed there, Rod’s bed was brilliant though – he has a church pew as his bed head which is just fabulous.

Our Greatest achievement in this house was the Fruit and Veggie garden that took over half of Rod’s back yard – im devestated i dont have any pictures besides the one where you can see the start of the garden behind me and a friend in our bikinis. We had every kind of fruit and veggie you can think of growing at some point – we decided the first thing you would have to walk through was ‘corn as high as an elephants eye’ and when the corn grew to this high it was just so so cool. We used to put any randoms who had slept over after a big night out get up, get into the smallest shorts we could find them and get them to toil the earth! Many a blow up pool and hay bails were bought in next to the veggie patch in long hot summer sundays to be loose in the sun – i distinctly remember a bunch of us in the blow up pool doing a ‘Summer rain’ rendition – great times here.

Power to the Hair and make up team

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So on working out where to start with this jumble of memories, and looking through my pics, the Hair and Make up team ( Rod and I respectively) were, and still are,  the most powerful team anyone in fame, public notary or just anyone with an innate sense of fabulousness, needs to appreciate. The power of presentation –  on how the world see’s your face whether or not your outfit is understated or glamourous…..So basically don’t under pay us, bring any diva attitudes and kiss my feet and praise my talent when ive completed the artistry on your face and hair style. Rod and I used to drive our friends insane – part of the whole going out process was to spend hours, and I mean hours getting ready. We would constantly do facials, manicure, steam baths, hair treatments and would gladly not leave to go out some nights until 2am in the morning having started getting ready in the afternoon. Rodney was amazing with his hairdressing skills and what he could find arround the house to pin-up, slick back or make hold on crazy hair styles – sometimes just held together with a paper clip. There was no rush, the process of him and I doing ‘beauty’ while drinking tea from his blue and white china tea set left us not only looking great, feeling relaxed, and by the time we would make a grand entrance to the clubs, well, everyone else would be sweaty, with mascara running, hair frizzing and no matter how gorgeous they may have been, were never looking as fresh as we did. It just further created this Loose Dolly entrance every night with new make up and hair styles (I wont go into costumes yet!) that meant we had the crowd’s attention. I was make up – and Rod was hair – and he could make me look different every night. When a girl has great hair you can see why Loose Dolly started to take over….God i miss my long blonde hair looking at these pics, and living with a highly talented hair stylist