Wednesday, January 24, 2018

There's a bad moon rising

We have a super moon this week, very close to earth and I'm not sure if we will have the blood moon of the northern hemisphere or just a weak version. 
I know it's an old wives tale that a big super moon makes strange things happen but this week already we have had 3 volcanic eruptions, earthquake off Alaska setting off a tsunami and trust Japan to do it better, volcanic eruption with avalanche. 
Icing on the cake, snow covering the Sahara.  We had a meteor miss the planet last week an no-one saw it coming. They did see it passing. 

Starfish are eating the Great Barrier Reef, rumours of a crocodile wandering Yeppoon and an epidemic of poisonous Stone Fish on Qld beaches.  Bats are falling out of the trees because of the heat, dead before they hit the ground.  

BUT MOTHER STILL LIVES.  Bloody woman and her cockroach DNA.

Yes more drama, don't ask.

I'm waiting on the moon.

Sunday, January 21, 2018

Science catches up


Scientists  have just put out a report that there is such a thing as "baby brain", where pregnant women, some women, are just not at their best.  Hands up all mothers who already knew this and could have walked all over this research.  It's only small things like forgetting where you left the car keys or the car or the car with the husband sitting in it.  Baby brain seems to hit more in the third trimester although I swear mine went way over 9 months.  I wandered home with groceries, vaguely acknowledged a cute kid in a pram and didn't realized until I was halfway down the street that the pram and kid were mine.

That photo of ice coldness is my favourite at the moment.  Do your friends tell you they remember summers much hotter than we have now and how fantastic the days were?  I wouldn't, I hated the heat, hated not being able to sleep, getting burnt walking to the letter box and never having enough ice blocks for cold water drinks.  I couldn't wait for Autumn.  Warm days and snappy nights.  So Ex and his blonde have moved house, even further away from me, lovely.  I now have another hobby, how high is the temperature where they'd moved to, currently mostly 40 degrees, bwahahhaha.  She hates the heat.

And today is the end of the first year of President Dumbkins, only three more to go.  He says he's kept all his promises made during election, he's forgotten that most women loathe him, of course they are fake women.  He also carries fake fat, it's not there, you're not seeing it, he's svelte but I want proof.  Him and Abbott, swimming, matching budgie smugglers, I'd pay to see that.  He'd have to put diving weights on his hair.  

Don't forget the 26th, National BBQ Day.  Get in early to bludgeon a marsupial for the barbie.
And waste another million or so dollars for fireworks, a real waste when Mother Nature has put on a fire display for nothing in the last few weeks.

I might enjoy it this year, Bombay Sapphire comes in litre bottles and it's on special, a gift bottle of wine that has a hint of passionfruit after taste and 4 cans of DoubleBlack Vodka.  The vodka was stuck at the back of the fridge, I thought it was diet Coke.  One can makes me see double, 2 cans would make Highriser look  like George Clooney.  But as you can see not one animal was injured in the making except if I trip over the cat.

Monday, January 15, 2018

Was it better when we only heard the news?

One cup of coffee, watch the news for how many weathers we will get for the day and I might as well be watching a disaster movie.  Volcano blows in New Guinea, 7.1 earthquake in Peru and a plane skids off the landing strip and falls over a cliff.  I couldn't believe it was just stuck on the cliff and didn't go further and crunch into the sea.  Everyone was saved, even with my dodgy knees I'd have been up that cliff in a rush.  And a fish sank one of the yatchs coming home from Tassie.  
They think it might have been one of these, a Sunfish or Mola Mola. Not only is the sunfish the world's heaviest bony fish, with some individuals weighing in at a staggering 2.3 tonnes, but it also possesses a truly bizarre body shape, likened to a gigantic 'swimming head'. The sunfish has no tail, with the caudal fin reduced to a rudder-like structure, called the clavus. 
With a head like that it could run and win for Parliament.  I was watching the Great Barrier Reef last night, might as well while we still have it and this object likes to swim up to the warm waters and have smaller fish chew off its parasites then swims down to the colder waters again.
See, I told you, Parliament.  The Front benchers crawl after the back benchers when they want a vote then piss them off  when they don't need them.

Anybody watch the 17 hours of the Ghan?  I could only suffer that from inside the train with unlimited booze and food and a good book.  The night before I watched the last five minutes which was absolutely riveting.  Driver's voice and a mile back down the track, another voice, counting off the carriages as they drew into the station, right down to the last 6 feet.  I tried another channel and got the cricket and near died of excitement.

Do try and watch the news tonight and do not switch off when Barmy Joyce rattles on about the inland rail which he talks about as though he is going to personally lay every block of wood along the entire length while carrying a rail on each shoulder.   Just keep your eyes on the 'tit fer tat', it is hilarious.  A giant orange pumpkin sitting on a smaller beady eyed pumpkin, nay not so much orange as neon glow orange or maybe it was yellow, my eyes were beginning to glaze over.
Now he's involved in the usual bunfight about Australia Day, honestly the man is a multi-tasking mouth.  I'm sorry I couldn't find a photo but I think the Mola Mola deserves its moment in the sun, alone.
 



Friday, January 12, 2018

12 days into the new year and where am I?

Exactly where I was last year so much so I picked up my diary and peeled back the cover to put a nice fabric and ribbon on it when I realized it was last year's diary which I never got the time to put fabric and ribbon on.  It was glancing at the first week which was so like this week and I'm easily confused these days.  So now I have two diaries to cover.  My sister says time wasting but I hate writing in a naked book and she also called me a hoarder but then a neighbour needed an item the other day and I had the very item and it probably has been in the same place for the last 5 years.  Excuse, I was just interrupted by delivery man carrying more mother work for me.  I will just love sitting down this afternoon cutting the exact size in the colostomy bags after I unpack from the individual plastic bags, take away the paper, pop off the stiff plastic protector from 30 of the bloody things and put the plastic clips on the bottom.  At least I don't have to pay for them if I don't count the taxi fare to get them to her.  And that will fix the arthritis in that hand for about 3 days. 
Doc Marvin is still looking after her and he told me to take my time fixing up the grave as she'll be here for some time.  I may have to kill him, all the crappy doctors in the system and she had to get the best one ever.   

 Did I blog the bushfire in Cheltenham?  Went through the Park, clipped the golf course and burnt two patches in the Pioneer Cemetary and in one of those patches was the family grave.  That's how the year started.  Sister went to see what damage was done, mostly watery ash, she said.  I'll go and clean the plaques in case she gets all house wifey and uses metal polish when bronze should only be cleaned with furniture polish.  There, see, I do have the theory of house cleaning, I just don't have the inclination to use it.  I forgot, after 10 or 11 years, certain members of the family have just discovered what a blog is and that I have one, so if I insult anyone, it's intentional and if you don't like it, don't read it and piss off.

And shut up any pious readers, I'm in pain and according to our beloved Government pain killers will not do me any good and I should find an alternative, I have, I swear a lot and loudly.
This heat has made the arthritis flare up and my usual swearing doesn't seem to work as well as it used to. I even had a shower at midnight last night, didn't help.  Perhaps I should haunt the wharves again and polish up my salty vocab although seeing  "spotted dick" Dutton's head is enough to bring up breakfast and antique blasphemies.  There are so many Parliamentarians who I would love to see standing on a landmine (trigger word, hello Asio) he is the one who is top of the list.  Fancy that creep gathering up all the power to, pardon while I chortle, keep us safe when a cockroach could take him down with one mandible.  I like that word, mandible, sounds so butch and cockroaches are really butch but I don't know if they have mandibles.  Oh wow, a vision of spotted dick disappearing under a herd of snapping mandibles.  I suppose it was maudling Malcolm who made him minister for killing anyone who won't eat a lamb chop on Australia Day.

Apart from still trying to clean up last year's clutter/mess/mustneverthrowout/books, I am also tossing a 6 foot tall bookcase full of mother videos not dvds but the other lumping great things.  I cry at the  money spent on them but the op shops won't touch them and after ma's shredded the tapes I couldn't say they would be in good condition.  To the right of me is a CD tower of her favourite music, discs which took me a week to put back in the right covers.  She said the other day that she'd listened to Shumann's or Shubert's (always get them mixed up, one was married to Clara and the other died of syphilus) Unfinished Symphony and loved it, never heard it before, 3 copies in that tower plus several triple up Mozart's everything he ever composed. 
Maybe I'll have a cup of tea and think of what to do or just go to sleep in the chair while a machine does my washing.

Monday, January 01, 2018

Keep reminding me it's a new year while I shake off the old one.

This was one of 2017's super moon but we have 3 in this new year.  Nature saved the best til last and that will be a blood moon at the end of January.  Apparently it's best seen from Adelaide so hang on River, there could be a mob at your door from moon rise to moon set.

2017 was not a good year, hardly a month when I was not ill.  Mother is still with us although she did not look good on Christmas Day.  If there is one Royal Commission we should have, it's a thorough going over the Aged Care Homes, not for just the care but for the pittance they pay the staff, the inadequate training they receive and the sneaky methods these so called 'not for profit' organizations manage to stay a mm within the law.  So few staff were on for Christmas Day, it was disgraceful, the girls were exhausted and the 'not for profit' refuses to pay for extra Agency Staff when needed.  Mother wasn't settled down for night until 11 p.m. and she'd been up at 7.30 a.m., put to bed at 4.30 and I didn't leave until she'd eaten some food,  didn't fancy her usual egg sandwiches but the chef made mince pie with custard disappeared in a flash.

In an interesting co-incidence I had ordered beautiful silk and silk paper peony roses to renew the rather tatty flowers at the family grave in the Pioneer Cemetary in Cheltenham.  The next day a fire started in the Park, skirted the golf course and hit two spots at the cemetary.  The grave wasn't damaged but the flowers were nicely singed.
If you're cemetary loving type then take a tour here . 

New Year's Eve was so quiet around here, it was almost spooky.  I believe the fireworks in Sydney and Melbourne were spectacular but call me Grinch when I think of them as an appalling waste of money.  The Bear has been through so many thunderstorms  lately that he's lost his fear of loud bangs, he just curled up a little tighter in my NEW second hand Laura Ashley arm chair.  It is so comfortable to relax in so naturally Mr Luxury has taken it over.

I have a plumber coming tomorrow to give me bad or good news.  I could hear running water in the kitchen but everything was dry so I tried outside and the hose was gushing brown water, that's rusty water.  The tap was turned off tight so it's either a washer (hope) or a pipe has gone behind the brick wall and the plaster (please no).  But forty year old  copper pipes are not destined to last forever.  I keep moving the hose to the citrus trees and they are loving it.  I've had a bumper crop of Mandarins this years and the possums have been in Heaven but have no manners at all and leave the peel all over the front yard and the footpath and the nature strip. I have visions of several sitting in the paperbark tree and catching the fruit thrown over my 6 foot high brick fence.  The little green parrots are back in the apple tree and I'm not sure which bird has been enjoying the oranges.  It must have a long delicate beak since the round skins sit in the yard completely empty of pulp, just a small hole in the top.  Lovely though to walk out and get a fresh orange for the vodka and the limes will be ready for the Gin in about 2 weeks.

I had a slight problem with the Christmas cards this year, I'd like to say the dog ate them but it was my mother.  She can barely use her hands to cut out for her cards so she just took mine.
She needs to have something to do even if it takes her a week so the brain thought and when a wedding invitation caught my eye, I tracked down invites on ebay.  Some will let you buy a sample so that's what I did, trawled through and found some beautiful laser cut cards.  All she has to do is stick jewells and pearls on the front and post.  Fixed the problem of jewells and pearls being too big, she took my small ones I'd bought for my Christmas cards so that's why you lot aren't getting any this year.  There are presents, everywhere and Annie O'Dyne is getting
a 5 year old one.  How I could have kicked it under the bed and forgotten where it landed is beyond me, I mean 5 years ago my brain was still working.  Dear Annie I will brush 5 years of dust off before I send it.   

Now if you don't get another post for a week, it only means that an entire bookcase of videos has fallen on me and I am being used as food by the Bear.  Wish me luck.