So because reading romance novels then writing random reviews that feature Dancing Picard and then tweeting about it doesn’t actually pay, per se, I do some other writing.

One of those other writing is for a training company that puts together a lot of workbooks and assessment to meet gov’t regulations for certification, the kind of thing that companies will bring in trainers for.

My latest assignment was to look over a workbook (about team work!), then put together assessment questions that address certain performance criteria. Seeing as team work is important, and because I’m ornery like that, I put together some kick ass questions that could not be answered verbatim from the workbook. No, you’d really have to think about the answers. Apply them to your own life. Think hard about your work persona. Extrapolate. Think outside the box.

Basically, super pain in the ass questions that will be awesome for the trainers, and super sucky for the trainees.

Then I sent them off, feeling very smug and self-satisfied.

I got this response:

Dear Katydidinoz,

These questions are great! Thanks for your hard work. Now if you could just go ahead and put together a couple of sample answers for each question, we can put everything together!

So the Romance Writers of Australia give out an award called the ROMA, for the best media coverage of romance in Australia and what do you know, I got nominated this year for my piece in the New York Journal of Books.

Yay!

So my sister is moving back to Canada indefinitely, so, you know, sad. Being a fiscally conscious woman, she decided to save herself $800 and take a stop-over between Sydney and LA - in Fiji. She is taking a couple of days in LA and staying with a friend of mine who will show her the sights (including, no doubt, some awesome cocktail bars). Being a courtesy-conscious woman, my sister is bringing my friend a gift. She picked up some Tim Tams, and bought a bottle of wine while going through duty free at the Sydney airport.

The wine was taken away from her in Fiji.

She had no idea why. We all racked our brains. Is Fiji a dry country like Brunei? No. Does Fiji have a religious or cultural holiday that forbids drinking? No.

It took my sister until she got to LA before she was told why.

The wine was more than 100ml of liquid, and it wasn’t being checked.

Well, duh. Her luggage was checked all the way through to LA. She was only in Fiji in transit.

Doesn’t matter. The US security regulations wouldn’t let her reboard the plane (the *same* plane, I might add. Just with a re-fuelling stop) with her duty-free wine because of the 100ml rule.

She was pissed. I’m just, ‘huh’?!!?

Horror shared is horror halved, right?

So I have a baby. Flybaby. She’s adorable, but, like all babies prone to producing hazardous waste. But, like every parent out there, when it’s your kid, you just deal, you know? I have a diaper bucket (that would be nappy bin, for you Aussies :)) beside the change table, and it gets emptied probably once a day. After a particularly pungent offering this morning, I tied up the top of the bag, lifted it out of the bucket, and set it down on the floor while I dealt with baths and bottles and the like.

This, dear readers, was mistake number one.

You see, I’m staying with my parents while Flyboy is deployed, and cumulatively, we have three dogs, one of which is only 6 months old. Can you see where this is going? Aromatically interesting bag, conveniently placed on the floor, three very curious, not-so-much-on-the-self-preservation dogs?

Yeah.

So on my return to the nursery, Flybaby in hand, I come across the remains of a day’s worth of diapers spread all over the floor. Dirty diapers. Nuclear waste diapers. It looks like a sorority girl pillow fight met two girls one cup. I don’t even know what the dogs did, but there was baby faeces ground into the carpet.

But, wait. That’s not the worst part.

After putting Flybaby down for a nap on my bed so I could attack the nursery with heavy duty carpet cleaner, murderous vows flowing from my lips, I come back out to the living room.

The three dogs have the grace to look bashful. Then, all of a sudden, all at once, they realise that disposable diapers don’t agree with their digestive systems.

Have you ever seen a dog projectile vomit? I have. Three of them.

So, after spending an hour cleaning up the remains of dirty diapers, I am left cleaning up dog-vomited-up, semi-digested, baby-poop-covered diapers.

Luckily, I made it to the bathroom on time to avoid having to clean up my own vomit as well.