Saturday, July 02, 2016

I want to be there


I probably would fall off the rocks climbing down but the view across a whole load of brilliant sea would be worth it.  That's my eldest granddaughter on those rocks. Her father used to do the same thing except he would usually be hanging off a cliff photographing a waterfall.

Mother is back at the Home.  My sanity is creeping back, slowly.

I have a lesson for all dumbarses.  When you get a new phone, don't get the same number as the previous one until you learn how to use the new one.  Anyway now no-one can get me on the mobile because it's dead and the other isn't alive yet.

I left home around 12 to vote, not too far.  It sprinkled rain.  I stopped next door to thieve some of their flat rocks since both cars were missing.  Unfortunate to collide with them coming out of the polling booth.  Prayed bag would not slide off the walker and drop stones at their feet. Steel myself to walk into the school where my son was one of the first students, push the memories back to the dungeon and lock the door.

Voting on my feet because mother made me miss the postal vote deadline.  I mentally got the giggles as the paper was so long, it went across the bench and up the wall.  I had an image of Will Smith in Men in Black trying to  fill out test forms and dragging the table across the floor. I had pencil, paper and glasses trying to escape.  Trying to read the tiny writing was a bastard but I finally found all the people I had decided on and that included the looking after animals party.  The voluntary Euthanasia Party was voluntary, mandatory and I would have included it for mother.
If I made any mistake, I hope it was for someone good and not Pauline Hanson or Family First or any other creep party  which was hard since most of them were creep parties.

Missed buying a lovely sausage and onions, no chairs to sit on and I was beyond standing and there is no way I could steer walker and stagger with food at the same time.  I was forced to dine on the delicious odour of frying onions following me down the road. Double strength cappuccino at the local and a litre of ice-cream in the bag started me off on the last leg to home.  2 o'clock I fell in the back door.

I will be watching the ABC count with the delightful Antony Green and using the remote to delete any face I don't like.  Usually the ABC is well mannered and not like the other stations which resemble a bunch of cage fighters.  


15 comments:

River said...

"Mother is back at the Home." When did she leave? Or did she just come with you to vote?
Has she been in the hospital or at home with you?
I had intentions of voting early, I planned on getting up there before the doors opened and being in and out so fast their heads would spin, but that didn't happen. I was up at 2:30am reading in bed because I was so wide awake, then fell asleep at almost five and finally got up at 9:45. Had a leisurely pancake breakfast and finally got to the polling booth to find a long, long line of people stretching back about ten miles (possibly slight exaggeration), filled my pockets with how to vote flyers, and we all shuffled forward smelling the sausages and onions, cups of coffee, and watching others eating scones, cakes etc that were being sold by little girls from the Guides. There was even hot soup available. Practically a party! If I'd known I would have skipped my pancake breakfast and carried a pocket full of cash instead.
anyway, I eventually did my closed eyes, stab the pencil at the paper thing, then made paper planes with the how to vote flyers on my way home.
I'm not watching the count. It will be in the paper tomorrow.

Anonymous said...

I too missed your mother being absent. I laughed at your rock theft. I elbowed some old person out of the way and got the extra wide and low voting booth with a chair. Still the ballot paper went up both sides of the booth.

Elephant's Child said...

I am so glad that I went down the pre-poll path. Which had some issues of its won. The table they provided was ricketty, and tried to collapse when I leaned my fat elbow on it. Or perhaps it was the size of the ballot paper...
And I see (this morning) that neither side is claiming victory and that the perilous pauline may be back. Sigh.

Ann ODyne said...

Good morning to all who logged on earlier than I have.

flat rocks? worth hauling? you geologist you.
A legend we can choose to believe or not, is that Vlad Rasputin the mad monk was very vewy hard to kill. I am sorry you missed the postal deadline, it irks me that postals are not counted till well after The Night, and I did the pre-poll during the week - no parking tangles. The senate paper was at least amusing - sex party, marijuana party, bikes party, the animals party and I laughed at Durward Hinch when I saw it and now the dopey bastard has got it FFS. what a great country where someone with criminal convictions and not even born here can do that. I do love that our nation turned voting into a giant sausage sizzle [Twitter is where you see all that - #democracysausage was the hashtag of mirth] and there was also #dogsatpollingbooths which included a CAT.
Love from Black Sheep Farm in the heart of the historic Western District where I love that I am sitting less than 1 km from the place where my great grandmother's grandmother was married in 1859. Darling Coppy I do wish you a calm warm weekend.

Ann ODyne said...

oh drat you still could have posted : from the aec.gov site: 'On Monday, the AEC will continue the process of verifying more than one million postal votes already returned to the AEC so that they can be admitted to the count beginning on Tuesday. The legislation requires that postal votes are included in the count if the vote is received by the Returning Officer within 13 days of election day'

JahTeh said...

River, never never say mother is home with me, I would slash wrists. I couldn't write a post about last Sunday due to mental and bodily meltdown. 7 hours in ICU and then the ward, papers that took hours to fill out. They kept asking for her weight and I'm saying 100 kgs, my sister is insisting 100 kgs and mother is saying 138 kgs and we know the hospital does not take patients over 100 and it turned out to be l04.1 but we got around it because she was full of fluid which they were trying to drain from her lungs.
I had no food, no cup of tea and not even a glass of water. I finally walked and faced the pitch black cold but the taxi was quick but not quick enough to stop my lungs from freezing. And I needed a pee.
It took 5 minutes to run up the dark drive, open door, put fire on, feed cat, open door for cat, throw leftover pizza in oven and then pee.
I rang next morning and she was okay and then I refused to speak to her for the rest of the week. She expected me to be at the Home waiting for her but I know when they say ambulance is booked for 2p.m. you can add 6 hours to that.
This comment is a blog post that I couldn't write.

JahTeh said...

Andrew, that's disgraceful, I could have been shown in to one of those 'for cripples' boothes but people were worse off than me. Yes to that bloody ballot paper, I didn't mind the length, it was the small writing that drove me crazy especially what party they belonged to. Postal from now on but then could I trust Australia Post to deliver it? R would have loved the cake stall and the yum sausage sizzle at our booth and I blame him for Kelly O'for getting back in.


EC, Bloody Pauline is back, damn. Barmy Joyce's sheep all turned out for him. And Derryn Hinch who had the nerve to say he had never voted in his life also got a Senate seat. I hope they fine the bastard for all the times he never voted. I couldn't pre-poll due to hysteria at how to get there and back, sort of last straw of mental breakdown due to mother.
And granddaughter had a baby shower and still no-one has told me about the baby.


Annie, flat rocks for painting on but I'm not game to sneak out at night for a forage. I do scope it during the day just in case. And it was for you that I voted for the Protect Animals party.
As for the calm weekend, I was woken at fuck o'clock this morning by nursing home because mother's phone was out of credits and she'd left 9 101 messages yesterday. I did work that out, left the phone off the hook in lounge and took the study phone over to the computer, negating any calls.
Mobiles still off line and waiting 40 minutes this morning for help didn't help because I needed food.
Still haven't had food but remembered to put washing machine on because of no knickers in drawer, now waiting for them to dry so I can go out for coffee and as many cakes as I can eat.
As for mother, I told RN in charge this morning that SHE is in charge of Home and not my mother and sister and I would back her in any decision she had to make regarding the Supreme Pain In the Arse.

River said...

Derryn Hinch got a senate seat? DERRYN. HINCH.
Dear god, we're doomed.

River said...

P.S. I'm impressed with your pee holding skills, I wouldn't have been able to leave the hospital without peeing first.
Sorry to hear your mum had all that trouble and you're an angel for being there with her

Elephant's Child said...

I too am impressed at your pee holding. Very impressed. I think someone should lock Derryn Hinch in a small room with Pauline. With Barnaby Joyce. And keep them away from the rest of us.

R.H. said...

Mr Hinch is a fraud and a con artist, meaning he'll fit very well into the Australian parliament. He actually shaved his (grey) beard last time in prison because he couldn't get to the ladies hairdresser for his weekly dye job. He believes in shaming child molesters. Good. I believe in hanging them.

JahTeh said...

River, I refuse to do it again, enough is enough but at least it wasn't election night.

EC, I saw her this morning on TV and she was surprised that others had been rung about Parliament but she hadn't. Queensland is an alternate universe.

Robbert, he said last night that he had never voted because he didn't believe in compulsory voting but that's what we have and he's been breaking the law for years. I do agree with him not giving bail to child molesters.

R.H. said...

The last refuge of the scoundrel is patriotism - and good causes. You can be the nastiest bastard on earth and folk will say, "Yes, but he's very good for..."
Hinch first appeared here on radio here in the early eighties as a darling for the poor old pensioners, their hero, they cheered him like crazy, then suddenly he dropped them for "Who's minding the children?". A more loveable cause.
He can change, as can Maguire, depending on the particular audience, or the mood of the time. During the early eighties Anzac veterans weren't admired like they are now. In about '83 an old digger rang and got a rough reception, "Well thankfully there won't be any of you around soon," said Hinch. Twenty years later he was baking Anzac biscuits.

R.H. said...

I'll tell you truly I don't care about it much but this country is definitely going down the drain.

JahTeh said...

Robbert, not often I completely agree with you but on this I do. These so-called shock jocks can turn on a dime when it comes to ratings. As for going down the drain, it's more like the politicians are flushing the voters and the country down the drain. As far as I'm concerned if they leave Parliament with a huge pension then they should not take another job but if they do then the pension can't be accessed. And take away their free travel.