Rhonda Bracey: At Random

When I was very little, I got a teddy bear. I was so young, I have no recollection of not having it. I still have it. I loved that teddy to death and even played hairdressers on it when I was about 6, giving it a bit of a haircut! (Update 2017: I’ve been scanning some old photos and have found a picture of me aged about a year old with my bear.)

I’ve never seen another bear like it, and had no idea where or when it was made. I figured it wasn’t a Steiff bear, but its identity eluded me. Then two weeks ago on ‘The Collectors’, they did a segment on a doll hospital and at the end of the segment the panel discussed the value of several bears — including a bear that looked just like mine! I was so excited!

Thanks to ‘The Collectors’, I’ve now found out that my teddy is a Berlex Bear, made in Melbourne from the 1930s to the 1970s, and the value is around $300. Value is irrelevant as I’d never get rid of my ‘Ted’.

‘The Collectors’ episode that featured ‘my’ bear is Episode 4, 28 February 2010 and you can view it here: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/collectors/segments/s2824604.htm. The segment discussing the bears starts around 5 minutes 10 seconds in, and goes to 7 minutes 48 seconds.

Here’s a screen shot from the video, showing ‘my’ bear:

Berlex bear

And here’s *my* bear:

And me with my Ted way back when:

Update October 2020: I’ve now had Ted restored back to his handsome self: https://rhondabracey.com/2020/10/21/my-teddy-went-to-the-teddy-bear-doctor/

(A friend sent this to me — I don’t know its origins so I can’t acknowledge authorship. Enjoy!)

When I was a child in the 1960s the bathing suit for the mature figure was boned, trussed and reinforced, not so much sewn as engineered. They were built to hold back and uplift and they did a good job. Today’s stretch fabrics are designed for the prepubescent girl with a figure carved from a potato chip.

The mature woman has a choice – she can either go up front to the maternity department and try on a floral suit with a skirt, coming away looking like a hippopotamus who escaped from Disney’s Fantasia or she can wander around every run of the mill department store trying to make a sensible choice from what amounts to a designer range of florescent rubber bands. What choice did I have? I wandered around, made my sensible choice and entered the chamber of horrors known as the fitting room. The first thing I noticed was the extraordinary tensile strength of the stretch material. The Lycra used in bathing costumes was developed, I believe, by NASA to launch small rockets from a slingshot, which give the added bonus that if you manage to actually lever yourself into one, you are protected from shark attacks as any shark taking a swipe at your passing midriff would immediately suffer whiplash.

I fought my way into the bathing suit, but as I twanged the shoulder strap in place, I gasped in horror – my boobs had disappeared! Eventually, I found one boob cowering under my left armpit. It took a while to find the other. At last I located it flattened beside my seventh rib. The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups.. The mature woman is meant to wear her boobs spread across her chest like a speed bump. I realigned my speed bump and lurched toward the mirror to take a full view assessment.. The bathing suit fit all right, but unfortunately it only fit those bits of me willing to stay inside it. The rest of me oozed out rebelliously from top, bottom, and sides. I looked like a lump of play dough wearing undersized cling wrap.

As I tried to work out where all those extra bits had come from, the prepubescent sales girl popped her head through the curtain, ‘Oh, there you are,’ she said, admiring the bathing suit. I replied that I wasn’t so sure and asked what else she had to show me. I tried on a cream crinkled one that made me look like a lump of masking tape, and a floral two piece which gave the appearance of an oversized napkin in a serving ring.

I struggled into a pair of leopard skin bathers with ragged frills and came out looking like Tarzan’s Jane, pregnant with triplets and having a rough day. I tried on a black number with a midriff and looked like a jellyfish in mourning.

I tried on a bright pink pair with such a high cut leg I thought I would have to wax my eyebrows to wear them.

Finally, I found a suit that fit…a two-piece affair with a shorts style bottom and a loose blouse-type top. It was cheap, comfortable, and bulge-friendly, so I bought it. My ridiculous search had a successful outcome, I figured.

When I got home, I found a label which read – ‘Material might become transparent in water.’

So, if you happen to be on the beach or near any other body of water this year and I’m there too, I’ll be the one in cut-off jeans and a T-shirt!

We’ve been getting some electrical and other trades work done.  The reason for this little rant is the experience we had last week with the two electricians, who we’ve called the ‘bogmasters’ (the name will become obvious soon…), and some other tradies.

1. Answer your phone

If the only phone number for you in the directory is your mobile phone and I call it during business hours, I expect you to answer it, or for it to at least go to voice mail so I can leave you a message. If you don’t answer your phone, I’ll call someone else. At least two plumbers lost potential work because their mobile phones rang out.

2. Turn up when you say you will

If you say you’ll be there at 9:00am, mid-morning, noon, mid-afternoon, whatever…, then I expect you to turn up then. I don’t expect to wait until 2:00pm if you told me you’d be there at 9:00am and you haven’t called me to tell me you’re running late. In fact, if you’ve told me 9:00am, then even 10:00am is pushing it without explanation. The opposite is true too — if you say you’ll be there late morning, don’t call me at 9:00am and say you’re waiting outside and I’m not home!

3. Control your bodily fluids

The ‘bogmasters’ both sweated — a LOT. Understandable. It was a hot day, they were doing physical work, and were in and out of the extremely hot roof space. Yes, they are going to sweat profusely. But please have a towel or something to wipe it up. Don’t lean on my sofa, don’t lean on my car, and don’t lean over my bed linen while the sweat is dripping off you or is still plastered to your shirt. If you want to do any of these things, grab an old towel to protect my stuff from your bodily fluids — hell, if you’d asked, I’d have given you an old towel for the purpose. I was not happy having to clean up your sweat marks and watching drips of sweat hit the clean bed linen as you were working on the lights in the bedroom.

4. Control your bodily solids

Don’t come to my house and expect to take a dump — do that in your own house. And if you really *do* have to have a crap, then clean up after yourself — there’s a toilet brush there for a reason. I don’t leave skid marks on my loo, and I don’t want you to either. Oh, and when you finish, you’d better make sure I can hear you wash your hands in the bathroom. Three Four dumps in two days by two guys (the aptly named ‘bogmasters’) was three four times too many.

5. Respect my property

I’ve paid you good money for your services; the least you can do in return is respect my property as you do the job. Don’t drag cables across my polished floorboards — it scratches them. Don’t stand on the edge of the sliding door frame — you can bend it or knock bits of brick work off. Clean up after yourself — bring your own vacuum cleaner/dustbuster; don’t expect to use mine. Put your rubbish in the bin — don’t leave it where it lands. Cover the area where you’re going to work if it has stuff underneath it that bits of brick and plaster dust might affect (e.g. clothes hanging in the walk-in robe). Wash your hands often — dark handprints on the white painted manhole cover aren’t pretty.

6. Smoke away from the house

If you are going to smoke, do it outside and well away from the house and any prevailing breeze that might waft your stinking smoke into my environment.

7. Speak my language

Both ‘bogmasters’ were originally from The Netherlands, and both had been in Australia for 30+ years. Both spoke English perfectly, with a little bit of an accent. Both spoke English to each other while they were working on the job. But occasionally they spoke to each other in Dutch. When you revert to a language I don’t know, I start to make assumptions — were you making risque or derisory comments about me or my husband or our house? had you screwed up something you were doing and didn’t want to let me know? (the “Oh sh*t!” moments)

I’d hire any tradie in a heartbeat who follows my simple rules. It basically comes down to respecting my property and my time.

Anyone else have tradie pet peeves they’d like to share?