In order to have that Bali holiday...

Well any overseas holiday but not Bali, too hot for my delicate features. Hawaii would be nice, the volcanoes there erupt too but flow along the path of any resistance straight to the sea.

So a holiday needs a new passport and a new passport needs a current photograph. I do not look as she does up there, more like the dragon wrapped around her arm. Dill taking the photos hasn't taken any for a while, so presses the wrong button, twice. There is a queue behind me and it's hot so I'm sweating, yes a lady does indeed sweat like a hog on a BBQ when stressed.
Dill tries again, after telling me I must remove my glasses in case the lens cause a flash and my eyes aren't clearly seen, biometric ID now. Success at last, I hand over $14.95, look at the photos and go into shock. I think I saw myself killing several people on 'Criminal Minds' last year.

The photos are rejected, too much sweating, well if I was getting on a plane I would be. I do need my glasses on because I wear them all the time and Dill should have taken enough photos to stop flashing. Also I was wearing very comfortable earrings so comfy I forgot I was wearing them and didn't take them off, Dill should have told me to as they blended into my earlobes and made me look like an upside down Spock.

Every cloud has a silver lining, I get another shot at a decent passport photo. Matt makeup should take care of the shine, glasses should make me look human not killing machine and no earrings. Fine print on passport form says cheaper for seniors, W00t.

The holidays might be cheap but...

They don't call the Pacific Ocean the ring of fire for nothing but next time you're looking at all those cheap packages to Bali, keep this map in the front of your mind.
Volcanoes, Indonesia has every kind and they all erupt sooner or later.

Involuntary self-harm

This is where you don't use a razor blade to slice up an arm or stick large pins into limbs.
It's involuntary doing stupid things like falling over because the mind is too full of other people's demands.
It's getting a diabetes result and wanting to kill for a MacDonalds hamburger that you haven't eaten in years.
It's hearing the word 'diet' and 'for life' and then buying up every bucket of ice-cream that is suddenly reduced to half price.
It's avoiding the chocolate aisle only to find it's moved and you're surrounded by everything that is delicious and like a crack addict, you fill the trolley.

It's avoiding Baker's Delight only to have apple cake delivered to your mouth for afternoon tea at the nursing home.
It's being woken by the cat and not going back to sleep so you wander round for the papers and the guy in front of you is getting coffee and you automatically order a cappuccino, no sugar but the fresh yo-yo's sing a siren's song and you're sitting at a table under a gum tree and not missing one crumb.

I'm beginning to think I ran over my foot to avoid exercise.

And more on the way. AGL stole $18 out of my account in the dead of night after already taking out the direct debits for the correct amount on the correct day. When I deal with them tomorrow, there will be self harm, there will be cake, there will be chocolate and there will be blood on the phone.

To me, the mere mention of diet causes self harm. My brain shuts down and sulks. It sulked for weeks when I decided to go vegetarian. Do you know it takes a month for the innards to be re-jigged for vegetables without meat? It takes years for the brain to be re-jigged for no chocolate, believe me.

So I'm sitting here with an ice coffee, arm hurting as the Tetanus shot battles it out with the macrophages, toe's still wrapped like a half hearted Egyptian mummy, knees still hurting from 3 weeks ago and not wishing I had a body like Elle since that seems like too much hard work and hunger but I have great wisdom instead.

Two gin and tonics make me fall over twice as much. How much more do you need to know of life?

Obesity articles - File under bullshit

The heading hasn't anything to do with this post, it's just that I was reading another "expert" on fatty bombahs and began to want ice-cream, chocolate sauce and marshmallows on top. I wish they'd all piss off to 'Thinland' and waste away in silence.

Before Christmas I picked up a copy of The Da Vinci Code in the oppie for a dollar. I enjoyed it the first time round but it's a book that can only be read once. A good mystery book is one where you can't remember who did it two hours after you've finished which makes it great to read a year later. Agatha Christie's books are brilliant for this. The film of the book annoyed me as well, not enough looking at the buildings where the mysteries were set. So that went in the bag to be returned to the oppie.

Christmas Day, my sister gives me a Dan Brown book. The illustrated version of his latest, The Lost Symbol. It totally lost me as a story and it had a crap ending. The photos illustrating the test were really gorgeous though. I've been told that sight seeing in Washington now is nearly impossible with security alerts closing off the best of the buildings and photographs have to be taken a long way away. So I'm keeping this book for the beautiful architecture that's given way to boring nothing type buildings. Mind you it was so heavy (lovely paper) that I had to read it on the bed because I couldn't hold it up.

If they'd done this with Da Vinci I'd be first in line to buy it. I did buy one of his others at Dirt Cheap Books, $5, probably all it's worth as a story. I also picked up a biography of Hilary Clinton and Margaret Whitlam, $1 each. Series 2 of the ABC's Dynasties, $1 and then we were back at the $5 lines, a murder, fantasy fiction, a social history of WhiteChapel at the time of the Ripper murders. This was after the book sale at Southland where I grabbed the third book in the Eragon series, a biography of Denys Finch-Hatton, another fantasy fiction and a pyschological thriller that I think I'll read during the day.

The floor is awash with books, the study has a shelf of un-reads, the dining table holds all of my jewellery books (huge), fashion books (huge) are in the bedroom under the chair and I just won't think of the four on their way from the Book Depository. I blame my childhood for all of this. I had only four books, a story about Jesus, the Queen's visit to Australia, the Snowdrop story book (green cover) and a very political incorrect book of an aboriginal family, Picanniny Walkabout. In primary school our library was two shelves in each class room which lasted me about three weeks. My first paypacket went on a pair of dollybird shoes to replace stilletos and a book. The second paypacket went towards a pearl and gold ring. Ooer, memory comes to me. My first piece of jewellery was from Woolworths, bought with my pocket money, a huge emerald ring set in 24 karat brass and sent my finger green every time I put it on.

So my love affair with books, books and more books began in the book poverty of my childhood and I learnt not to take gold at face value. I think I'll go and rest the toe and rifle through the treasures. Christmas present to me, you ask? Two huge books on the jewells of the Romanov Royal Family. I tell you there was a reason they wore whalebone corsets, they would have toppled over with the weight of the gold and diamonds otherwise. One nasty snippet was the fact that one of my favourite tiaras was snaffled by Imelda Marcos, pearls before swine. She probably hung her shoes on it.

Yea, I got an A+++

No, my glucose level is still 8.6.

No, my weight hasn't moved a gram in four weeks.

This is for my bandaging skilz.

Big toe on the left foot. Difficult job.

I was viciously attacked by a rogue wheeli bin that surgically removed my toenail except for the tiny shred of skin in a corner.

Yes, I thought to myself, that hurt.

Looks down to see a nice pooling of blood at the scene of the crime.

Now this is where having an untidy house comes in handy, I know where everything is because I haven't put it away yet.

So next to my chair is a sterile dressing in case the BrickOutHouse needed it.

On my head is a towell because I'd just washed my hair so that goes on the floor.

Get tape from bathroom, sterile wipes, check pulse, still alive.

Wrap it all neatly and securely after removing nail. Ring doctor, ring BrickOutHouse who yells a lot and then recline gracefully on bed until appointment for tetanus shot.

But doctor and dressing nurse very impressed with sterility of wound. Didn't give me a jelly bean though.

Pertinent to the last post.

Last night or early this morning

I can't remember which but I do remember the dream.



How could I forget a dream that featured George Clooney.



The dream also had me in a ritzy beauty salon having my hair cut.



MY HAIR CUT!



Are you kidding dreamworld?



But I did get it cut.



It showed up the white undergrowth of my naturally enhanced normal colour.



It also made me look like my mother and my grandmother.



So, I'm at the counter to pay for the shearing which I'm hating more and more and tossing my head like a horse with flies which is actually making it look a lot better in the giant mirrors.



No salon should have giant mirrors.



There is George Clooney in front of me, dashingly groomed.



I'm trying to find my purse in the bottomless pit of a bag I haul around day after day when everything hits bedrock by the end of the week.



Dear George, offers to pay for my hair cut.



Damn, George, thanks for nothing. His credit card is refused and I find mine and pay for his hair.



The comments are now open for dream interpretations and close your filthy minds while you're commenting

The secret life of pearls.

I've been enjoying a book called "Jewells, a secret history" by Victoria Finlay. I thought it might be a bit dry but it's full of wonderful snippets of history and information that is new to me.



Julius Ceasar and his invasion of Britain to gain control of the mineral resources and boatloads of flaxen haired slave girls was just a front. He had his eye on the country's pearls. He'd already decreed that only aristrocrats could wear pearls and only Caesar could wear a purple toga to match.



So, pearls in Britain? River pearls, natural fresh water pearls from mussels. Rose pink from Scotland, black pearls from Ennerdale in Cumbria and white pearls from Ireland. They were harvested and exported all over Europe. (The only pearl discovered in Fleetwood is Our Brian).



Unfortunately river pearling was forbidden in 1998 due to men's greed and disregard of the delicate balance of the ecological systems and disruption of the wild mating habits of the mussels

Pearl mussels breed every summer in an orgy of shared sperm and group sex in which the male mussels spray semen over the females as they all stand in the water. Thanks to pollution and overfishing by amateurs there aren't enough mussels for a good swingers party and breeding doesn't take place.

Each Scottish river produced a slightly different pearl colour, the old pearl fishers also known as "Travellers" put it down to the amount of peat in the water.

Rivers that breed mussels also breed salmon and they have a symbiotic relationship. After the breeding orgy when one female mussel can produce about two hundred thousand spat (young'uns) they hitch a ride on a passing salmon, staying on the fish all winter then drop off in the spring. This means they settle in a different part of the river from where they started, Nature's way of stirring up the gene pool.

Now take notes, there'll be an exam.

We've all been told how pearls are formed. A wandering grain of sand slips into the mussel or oyster shell, irritates the hell out of it so it secretes nacre to cover and neutralize the nuisance.

Wrong!!!!

It's usually a small parasite wanting a snack and manages to slip between two deformed shells.

French natural scientist, Raphael Dubois asked if we would love a pearl as much if we knew it was the brilliant sarcophagus of a worm.

The pearl fishers of British and Scottish rivers looked for the 'uglies' hiding under rocks and these were the keepers of the treasure. After the legendary Abernathy Pearl was discovered in the 1960s, the hordes invaded and like all hordes took every shell except the 'uglies' so greed destroyed the river mussels.

From our wormy 'uglies' of the river to the giants of the oceans. Pearl farming waits for no worm or sand grit, the shells are opened slightly, the nuclei for the nacre is inserted.......into the 'nads'.

That certainly gets the soothing nacre moving fast. In the words of Victoria Finlay, "Few outside the trade are aware that almost every pearl on sale today was born of the planned sexual violation of a small creature and considerable suffering hangs on those necklace strings".

Oh gosh darn, hang a guilt trip on a pearl lover. Add to the list, no sexually violated pearls, no blood diamonds, no Burmese rubies controlled by megalomaniacal Generals, no Columbian emeralds funded by drug lords and no 'synthetic as real' gems from thieving eBay dealers.

That dress!

I'm doing the 'Bambi thing'

If you can't say anything nice

Don't say anything at all.
Except I think I like the bridesmaids.

The Christmas tree is de-trimmed and packed

Another of life's mysteries, all the ornaments came out of the pine chest in X amount of boxes but will only go back in Y amount of boxes. Now to try and put Y amount of boxes back in the same pine chest that only fitted X amount.

The house is in chaos. The BrickOutHouse will be here for a while so I'm re-arranging the room. It's like a giant jigsaw puzzle. I take the bookcase from one side after removing all the materials and put it on the other wall near the door. This will enable me to pack his clothes on the shelves instead of 4 different baskets. His good and chattels are packed and stored in the study, so we/I move them to where the bookcase was. His TV is standing on my old treadle machine and that's not moving anywhere. Funny how it doesn't look big where it is but move it to any other part of the house and it looks like the Titanic. His computer is sitting on two plastic boxes of lace so I talked him into buying a small computer station.

The joy of OfficeWorks, I could wander there all day but not with Mr. Impatient who has changed his mind again. We're in front of the one picked out of the catalogue, it has a pull out shelf for the keyboard with a drawer underneath that, shelf for the CPU and it has wheels. He doesn't see the point in wheels. The next one has wheels, no drawer, shelf for the CPU but it's a horrible orange wood, never, not even for $10 cheaper. Never fear Goldilocks found exactly the right one, shelf for CPU, shelf for keyboard, wheels, shelf above for speakers and it's in black.
He was half way to the checkout before I'd finished asking if that would do. I didn't even get a chance to play with the netbooks or check out the office doodads on special.

He has his last appointment with the surgeon tomorrow, very early so I'll be in that room as soon as he's turned the corner. He can't see the point in moving so many boxes around. Doh, he wasn't the one who had to buy ribbons the other day because the ribbon boxes couldn't be reached without a rope in the ceiling. The way I have it planned the boxes I really need will be in the study, his will be next to his bed and if he winds up that cuckoo clock I'll deck him and the boxes that I won't need for a long time will be at home blocking off the passage to the kitchen.

I just need to get to the wardrobe in the study to put the Christmas tree away. I can't believe how much stuff I moved to get it out in the first place. Still if I feel this is hard, I only have to look up the date in last year's diary when we were selling mother's house. Now that was a nightmare.

Heritage, it's all in the genes

Well, I'm not one to boast but you can take your Elles, your Noamis, your Megans and your Hawkins, I have the best of them all.

The youngest granddaughter at sixteen. A mixture of wonder and horror, she has a learner's permit, that's the horror part. She wants to study drama, her first option but she has options all the way down to working at Woolworths if everything else fails. Of course, she intends to work her way to the top of Woolworths. I took her shopping, what a dream. She turned down the 50% off at the $200 shop in favour of the Salvo's across the road where she stunned in a black cleavage busting, 3 tiered beaded chiffon. A bargain at $12 with another little check number that was so tight, I insisted she sit down and breath in it before I'd buy it. A visit to the great grandmother at the home topped off with a visit to her facebook page and her 1000 photographs.

The eldest dressed for the school formal. The dress was a little more pinkish than this blue but she filled it very well. She also did a kind thing, asked a boy to take her that the other girls laughed at, of course it might have helped that he was no danger to her current boyfriend but a nice gesture anyway.

My two best gems, beyond price.