THAT CODE THING

Yesterday didn't happen. I refuse to acknowledge yesterday at all from the early morning when my mother said that thing wasn't working until nightfall when I was ready to reach down the phone and rip out a nurse's throat. My mother's thing that wasn't working, it was her memory. So yesterday is in limbo and will remain there.

Today I went to see that film about the book that everyone hates because he is making squillions from it. If I don't mention the name, no-one can google me. It would have been worse if I hadn't been in Gold Class courtesy of my Christmas present ticket and working my way through the dessert menu courtesy of my Christmas present food ticket. I would have had my feet up but I can never work the stupid button on the side of the comfy chair and besides I would have to lean too far for the food.

Memo to self: Never go to one of those black out trendy food places where I have to wear a blindfold and the place is in total darkness. It's supposed to enhance the appreciation of the food if you can only taste it. I'd die of starvation. I can't find my mouth in a theatre where there is a small amount of light. It's very embarassing when the lights go up and you're wearing a necklace of marachino cherries that somehow missed being hoovered up with the cheesecake.

The film was ordinary. I'm glad I read the book or I would have missed the primary plot, being as it were, holy (pun intended) absorbed by the secondary plot. That is, the mystery of Tom Hanks' disappearing botoxed forehead. He starts offwith a 3 storey high forehead and straight across hair and ends with worry lines and a widow's peak. For the first hour there is no expression above his eyebrows and his squishy little eyes don't move a lot either. When did he have the stroke? I mean he only talks using the right side of his mouth although at the end there is a slight movement that shows teeth on the left. It was fascinating watching the various lumps, bumps and furrows slowly appear. He has a face that lumps, bumps and furrows can only improve. I hate to think what he'll look like by the time he makes the next Langdon film.

People complained it was too talky but I didn't think so. There wasn't enough of the Louvre, or Westminster or the Chapel in Scotland. I'm still stumped as to who could have played Langdon other than Hanks. On that note, I watched 'Zulu' the other night and please don't ever have Hollywood remake that film. It's a little dated but Stanley Baker and Michael Caine and the cast of British character actors are still great to watch. I'd have actually paid Gold Class prices to see that.

SKY WATCH

This is going to be the evening sky facing north-west in Melbourne tomorrow night, June 15 at 6.00pm AEST.

The black expanse to the left of Pollux is a representation of the Prime Rodent's mind.

I'd do more sky watching but it's outside and it's cold and the neighbours think I'm perving when I sit on the roof.

I did take a photo of the partial eclipse of the moon last year. It came out beautifully, a tiny yellow dot in a huge nothing, guess who forgot the telescopic lens.

What can I say, women cannot be perfect all the time, we do have our seconds of off-time.

MY KNEES

My Knees. Very expensive. The operation hurts, lots. I had it done twice. I was going to put up selected highlights from the operation report but it even turned me green. They did everything with my leg except score a soccer goal, twice. I got to keep my own kneecap, not this plastic one.
The peg down the middle of the long bone is hammered in and the top of the bone is cut off and levelled. Keep looking at this and ignore the steaming pile of Yak turds in the room, it's only Howard and Ruddock stealing legislation. They'll pass into nothingness in time but Gays and Lesbians will still be here, being civil unioned by a more tolerant society than this miserable remnant of Christian Crawlers Anonymous.

As I was saying about meteorites. This is a quote from Guy Consolmagno of the Vatican observatory in Arizona, and curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Castel Gandolfo, Italy.
"Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which is a kind of paganism."
The Vatican's meteorite collection????

And back we go to Antarctica. Jennie Whinam, a botanist with Australia's Department of Primary Industries in Tasmania, and colleagues from the Australian Antarctic Division decided to check what sort of alien organisms might be hitching a ride on the expeditions to remote sub-Antarctic islands. They used vacuum cleaners and forceps to suck and pluck every seed, spore and plant fragment. From 64 arrivals, they found 981 seeds and fruits belonging to 90 species, some of them invasive and a serious risk to local flora. The majority came attached to the Velcro fastenings of clothing and gear.

The Swiss inventor of Velcro got the idea from the prickly burrs entangled in his dog's coat. The fine hooks covering the burr had become so emeshed in the dog's fur, it was almost impossible to separate. So full circle and an invention is now doing exactly what Nature has been doing forever. Now don't give another thought to those Yak turds, Nature will fix them.

ANTARCTIC CRATER

Not every scientist is convinced that this is a crater but Geophysicist Dr. Ralph von Frese of Ohio State University thinks this is the remains of a 48 kilometre wide meteorite that wiped out most of life on Earth. This was at the end of the Permian (called the Great Dying) 250 million years ago when 90 per cent of marine life and 80 per cent of life on land were wiped out.

The circular land features are in the Wilkes Land region of East Antarctica, south of Australia. The crater would be more than twice the size of the Chicxulub crater believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs. von Frese believes its location suggests it is older than 100 million years, the date at which Australia drifted northwards from Gondwana.

The faint yellow circle is a 320 kilometre wide plug of dense material which is a feature of impact craters. von Frese expects this to be mantle material that was sucked up as the meteorite rebounded from the Earth's surface.

The image above shows Australia fitting together with the Antarctic coastline and the concentric rings or shock waves around the crater. Von Frese says this suggests that the ocean between Antarctica and Australia opened after the crater was formed. He thinks the impact could have triggered the process that culminated in the break up of Gondwana 100 or so million years later. This was the creation of the tectonic rift that pushed Australia northward.

Dr. Peter Morgan of the University of Canberra trained in gravity analysis at Ohio State University and says he has ground-based gravity and radar measurements of the same area. He is now processing the data to see if it supports the theory. But before the structure can be linked to the Permian extinction, it has to be dated and it's almost 2.5 kilometres beneath the ice.

While we're still down in Antarctica. Belgium will build the first polar station powered solely by renewable sources of energy - solar and wind. The base will be for studying climate change and will cost $10.8 million. Australian Government please take note and try converting our base down there. Some of that 10 billion earmarked for ID cards would be put to better use on the ice.

SUNDAY RANT

The fight to get Herceptin for women with HER2 positive primary breast cancer is still going on.
Tony Abbott is still sitting on his PBS hands. There are instances where the drug won't work but a young mother with kids who is looking at dying anyway will take any chance to survive.

The Prime Rodent said yesterday, "The Government is well aware of the public support for the drug and the need to consider potential listing of this drug as quickly as possible. The Government is moving to ensure the necessary processes are completed in minimum time."

Will you two get off your collective arses, stop pissing about with Civil Unions which will hurt no-one and do something about this cancer which kills women? I bet if your dicks turned green with purple spots and herceptin would help, it would be free. Speaking of free, if this government has 10 billion to waste on ID cards to stop us welfare bludgers, I'll give up my share to buy Herceptin for one woman.

On the subject of us welfare, disability bludgers of baby boomer age, here's another little item.
Hello Whingeing Watson. Generation X-ers are at risk of dying before their parents. A new Australian study shows they are becoming obese faster than any other age group.
The Sydney University study found those born between 1966 and 1970 were gaining weight more rapidly than baby boomers and adults of the pre-war generations.
Diet and lack of physical activity have been blamed for X-ers being more prone to becoming fat.
HaaaHaaaaaHaaaaaa.

Now for something I really have an opinion about. Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop wants to introduce a national uniform minimum age of 4 and a half for starting school. Education ministers will vote on it next month. This is fine if the parents are given a choice if they don't think their child will cope at this age. An extra 6 months makes a lot of difference to a child's development and while parents who have had children in childcare will say they can cope, others may not.
My son started at 4 and a half. It was two years before we knew there was a problem and that was only discovered by accident. I always heard his reading homework until one night two pages in the book were stuck together and he read the next page perfectly except it should have been the preceeding page.
It was discovered that he had memorised every page of every book by listening. He wasn't dsylexic but he read and wrote words and entire sentences completely backwards. He knew that was wrong so turned it round and the psychologist who tested him said it was the equivalent of reading and translating a foreign language. The problem was that his eye/brain co-ordination hadn't matured when he started school and it was a matter of his body catching up to the brain. The psychologist tested him twice to make sure the answers he was giving were not guesses because those answers were in the 11 y-old range.

It was only another 6 months before the reading and writing becames normal. But the stress on that kid who felt he had to hide it had an emotional effect on me. The psychologist pointed out that it took specialised testing to discover it because he wanted to be like the others in his class so he became very clever at concealing it. This is why I wouldn't like the school age to be mandatory unless the parents are able to discuss their child with teachers first.

COGNITIVE MAPPING

John Zeisel has a doctorate in sociology and has trained in architecture and neuroscience. He has designed care homes for people suffering from Alzheimer’s and hospital rooms for premature babies. The information about prem. Babies was new to me.

The brains auditory and visual pathways and sense organs develop before the foetus is exposed to external stimuli. During the last few months it starts sensing noise and vibration. The retina and visual cortex are still developing. If the babies are born prematurely this development is disrupted by exposure to artificial lights, noisy equipment, the voices of doctors etc.

This creates permanent damage, which means they cannot discriminate between frequencies and tones as well as other babies. They can develop speech difficulties and never become good musicians. Being exposed to overbright lights too early means that the eye grows too quickly, often resulting in myopia.

John Zeisel’s idea is to design places that act as a substitute for the womb; an environment that supports what is going on in the brain.

But it was his use of design in Alzheimer’s care homes that made me realize why I feel comfortable in my home. According to Zeisel, most care homes have hallways that all look the same. This is distressing to Alzheimer’s patients who can’t remember what’s around a corner or which way to go.

Zeisel has overcome this by having all hallways and pathways ending with a visible destination. Such as having a fireplace or kitchen or something the person can associate with safety visible at all times. He also puts familiar photographs, chosen by the patients, on the walls so they have a sense of place. They don’t wander around because they can see where or what they are going to. This lowers the level of anxiety.

To quote Zeisel:
“If somebody has amnesia, and cannot remember certain things, they say: “I don’t know who I am.” To remember something you need to know where it happened as well as when it happened. Place is essential to memory: without a memory of place, people lose their sense of self.”

My home is small, in the old language, 13 squares. Every room is visible from another. The only longish hallway leads to the kitchen and I filled one wall of it, floor to ceiling, with books. The way mirrors are placed there is a view around every corner. I’ve never grown tired of it and I feel safe in it. So now if I go into a house and hate it immediately then it’s just my cognitive mapping ability that’s offline and nothing to do with the purple shagpile carpet and orange feature wall.

THANK YOU PM

I bet you all wondered where the witch venom was when the Prime Rodent made his announcement about overturning the ACT's Civil Unions Act. Well I was in a bit of pain, the date being 6.6.6 and my past lives coming back to haunt me. You know dislocating of joints on the rack, burnings, getting thrown in lakes, all discriminatory acts against the gentle crones of the forest. Not to mention the temperature in Melbourne, talk about Hell freezing over.

I do want to thank His Ratness for considering the institution of marriage and how he can save it from those awful *gasp* same-sex people who think they *horror* should be allowed to commit to each other. I mean JUST LIKE US normals. I admire him for standing up on the day of the Anti-Christ and throwing his Godliness in the Devil's face.

Now let's really save the institution of marriage and shove all skanky blondes in those detention centres we've got standing idle. Another idea would be to let legislation go through but do a little deal with God. Any gay person proposing marriage to another would instantly be smitten with Ruddock's visage and that should stop them in their tracks. I'm sure I could think of others but I'm having phantom pains due to bodkins being stuck in odd places.

YUM

I love sweet things that sprawl on homespun sheets.

CRAFTY TWO AND A BIT

Brilliant! I only had to choose between three photos and I post the same one twice. Here are the other two. Just as bad, it wasn't my fault, they kept moving on the cushions.

CRAFTY NO. 2

I'm not bad at craft but definitely the world's worst photographer. I used to make these little mice, from my own design, in pretty flowered cottons for gifts for babies. They have shank button eyes, lacey ears and ribbons hold up their tails. Stuffing the tails was an art in itself. I sold hundreds of these until sales stopped dead, just like that. It took a while to figure out why but I finally did. Mothers didn't dress their babies like babies anymore. Nothing pretty was suddenly the rule and it was garish colours, baby jeans and walloping great boots on two month old tiny tots. They grow up fast enough without pushing it along. Stupid fashion conscious tarts. So now I make them with lavender inside and put them in the wardrobe. Fiddly little buggers but pretty.

NOTES FOR BLOGGING

After reading the last post I must remember:

Don't blog when tired, stressed, in pain, full of pain killers, eating almond brittle, peanutbutter on toast, thinking too much and drinking port.

Especially don't blog when I'm doing all of those at the same time.

I'm leaving all the mistakes, it will remind me.

One thing I did leave out of that post, my first hangover. I found that the new toilet was the right distance for sitting and throwing up in the handbasin. Fancy mum thinking ahead like that.

MEMORIES

Over the years I've spent a small fortune on psychiatrists when all I had to do was, one, not get married and two, read other blogs. Thanks to Highriser blogspot mentioning dunnycarts, I had so many repressed memories float to the surface (so to speak) that I should sue the last therapist for saying I was sane.

Every day some health official or doctor is giving advice on how to avoid bowell cancer which is fine for the young but far too late for us oldies. Most of us can pinpoint the cause of any bowell problem and/or phobias in our memories of the backyard dunny. Throw in lung cancer as well if the BYD was made of Hardy's fibro and lord knows what carcinogens we soaked up through the skin from the phenol used to disinfect the wooden seat.

I can't believe how many terrors of my youth were caused by that small aromatic building. Our main house was built on sandy soil but a shortage of any drainage made the backyard a swamp which my mother tried to rectify by planting willow trees and my father undid by stabling a race horse there. The only light was on the back verandah which meant darkness halfway down the wooden path. Unless the moon was up, shining through the willow branches with the wind moving the leaves, talking to each other but it's okay mummy and daddy are here holding your hand. Yeah, right, back up, ma and pa are inside toasting their feet by the fire, "Just yell if you need us." I can't yell, the willow trees will hear me, if I pee myself, my mother will get me.

Now I see the beginings of the chronic anxiety that will keep shrinks and pharma companies in luxury for years.

We never had a light in the BYD, we were too poor to have that wonder of modern technology - a torch so the only chance was to hide a box of matches and hope no one found out. This led to more anxiety. Was it better to see where the spiders were and watch them watching me or stay in the dark and hope they stayed asleep. The only chance was to play Kipling's 'Great Game' and remember the exact location of every web in daylight. I don't know how they survived although flies were plentiful but it was the smell, not what you think nor the phenol but those dreadful, wrapped in purple cellophane, noxious de-odorant blocks commonly known as 'lavvy lollies'.

Then there was the horse. Dad built a fence using the BYD as part of it so the horse would use the wall as a scratching post or give it a bit of a wallop with a hoof. His best trick was to open the door and shove his head inside and that head and those teeth were enormous to a sitting child. How many times have I read in books about a horse's gentle snickering, forget it, this beast could smell fear, the snickering was sarcastic. No good banging on the walls for help, that dislodged the spiders and got the earwigs going. Even worse was making the big escape to find he'd done his second best trick, rolling under the bottom rail and standing on the path to the house. I was as glad as mum was, the night he jumped the front fence and trotted back to his old stable.

Now the wooden path was another hazard to negotiate to the BYD. My mother made it from wooden blocks dug into the sandy soil without cement. When it rained they floated away and I would hold to bursting point before tackling a swirling torrent. Water like that kills earthworms and they float and it doesn't matter how old I get, I will never walk through dead earthworms. It was a great day when Dad came home from the pub with a load of "hot" concrete blocks off the back of a truck.

Then there was the never-ending terror of being caught 'on the job' by the 'man with the can'. Dad bribed him to come more often, usually in the dead of night but never to a timetable. He actually had an apprentice. There were tricks to be learned. Never hoist a full one, tip a bit out son, but not where anyone can see. Our labrador dog was a digging type of dog and the DM's apprentice missed the hole by the gate going in but he certainly went to the bottom, with a full one, on the way out. A lot of workplace negotiations went with that incident and reparation in the form of a few dozen bottles of VB. One Christmas, unexpected visitors saw dad out at midnight digging a deep hole to bury a slight overflow, he'd have made a great parliamentarian.

In one of her beautifying moods mum built a wood and chicken wire fence, five feet high, to hide the BYD. My sister, the gymnast, would use the top as a practice beam until the day she overbalanced. She ended up hollering for an hour before dad could stop laughing and help her pull her foot out of the dunny wall. He left the hole there with her name underneath it. She and I would stand at the bus stop and watch in horror as the school bus and the dunny cart raced neck and neck down the hill. We had two options, pray the school bus would get to us first or run like the devil down the side road to the next street.

When we finally got the sewerage connected mum went crazy. The new toilet attached to the house was built to her specifications. It was half the size of my bedroom. It had two windows with frilly curtains, wall paper, full length mirror and a hand basin with running water. Dad put his foot down about an expensive light fitting so mum bought a cheap plastic one and put in a 100 watt globe. After it melted and dropped on his head, twice, he gave in.

I think this covers most of my idiosyncrasies and phobias, anxiety, dead worms, horses, dark nights, never shutting the door, 100w globes to shine in every corner and never, never run out of toilet paper. Thank you Andrew, your cheque is in the mail, use it appropriately.

68 DAYS

That is right. Only 68 days since we saw the first doctor and full circle to see him again today.

In those 68 days Mum has had a mammogram, ultra-sound, core biopsy, CT scan, bone scan, Chest X-ray, heart scan blood tests, breathing test, mastectomy and lymph node removal. She came through the op with flying colours. It even surprised the oncologist at how well she went.

She has to take the tablets for the rest of her life but today it wasn't said how long that life would be. The doctor gave her too much information and I could see her zoning out. Already the wound cut has opened along one end, only 10 mm on Tuesday at the clinic but today it was more like 30. He said it might take 4 to 6 weeks to heal from the inside out. There is also a small build up of fluid at the breast bone. The tumour was much larger than the scan showed but only one node was cancerous. So while everything visible has been removed, the cells can still be floating around somewhere.

She got in the car and asked me if I got everything he said, that's so she doesn't have to think about it. As long as I know, she's happy. Did it mean she was cured? I told her to ask again in 5 years. My sister walked in, took one look at my face and handed me a large chocolate bar. She knows the signs too well. The breast care nurses don't do home visits so I have to watch for infection and do the dressings, which is no problem but what happens to really sick women who can't make it to the hospital? District nurses, I suppose but our doctor is willing to come if he's needed.

The old girl hasn't quite given up but she did tell me to stay home for the weekend. Bad sign, no manipulating to get me to keep her company. I never thought I'd miss that. I picked up her morphine from the chemist and her tattslotto but it was a long walk home in the dark. The leg went again about 3 houses from home. It's just a leg, I can fix that.

COMFORT BLOGGING

The only thing to do on a cold afternoon and there's no chocolate hidden anywhere in the house, is to make a visit to Miss Chika at http://shewhoeats.blogspot.com and drool over her beautiful food photos.

This is Ginger-scented chocolate mousse with mango and passionfruit.

Cubes of fresh Mango, pulp and seeds of passionfruit mixed with ginger syrup, light and smooth chocolate mousse with ginger bits, topped with chocolate shaves.

I used to make a marshmallow pavlova and fill it with chocolate mousse and drizzle melted chocolate over the top. Then I'd serve it with a small glass of Drambuie to cut the sweetness. No wonder I have a bum like a working bullock. Do you know you can actually taste memories?

PRUNNING

I went all over the mandarin tree to photograph the best and these were them. Don't look at the black hole in the middle, just pretend it isn't there because it wasn't. It's where the possum kama-kazied off the roof and landed smack in the middle of the tree and snapped off a loaded branch. So now they know the fruit is ripe and the war has begun. I walked out this morning and they have eaten the fruit and left the skins on the tree, swines.


I prunned this right down 12 months ago when the fruit didn't grow to more than grape size. It was overshadowed by a huge Blue Spruce so that was next to go. I think that's why the mandarin has come on so well, more water and sun. Notice my politically correct lawn, pine needles, grass tufts and dirt. It softens the landings when the possums fall out of the tree. When it rains on the blossoms, the smell of mandarins fill my bedroom.


Two years ago, I cut down the lemon tree to the second rail on the fence. I couldn't reach the ripe fruit at the top so I thought 'That'll learn ya!' but it loved it. In the grass at the bottom is a large cat and the fence is over 6 foot tall. It's a bit hard to see the lemons because the stupid things aren't ripe yet and I still haven't figured out how to get the top ones down.
I had never prunned anything until the Blight left and six years ago I did it a lot easier than these days. I just take my time, a few branches each day.

There are only two rules for cutting branches. Don't hang on to the branch you're cutting and don't stand under the branch you're cutting when hanging on to the branch next to it. In all cases this leads to stitches and a black eye.

A GRAND OLD DAME

As well as cleaning up after 25 years of sewing and crafting, I also had the task of dusting and re-arranging Mum's books with the option of throwing out any I didn't think she'd read again except her collection of Barbara Cartland Regency Romances. Then she thought I'd better keep the other BC's just in case. I hope when I get old, I'll be rich enough to have a photographer back light and air brush my wrinkles as the Dame has had done here. It must have been those hundreds of vitamins she took each day that gave her the strength to keep her eyes open with the weight of those false eyelashes she wore to the day she died. I've always had a hankering for the ultramarines around her neck as well.
After reading the second part of her autobiography, my first thought was about how much she could blow her own trumpet but on further thought, she was also an 'I can do' and she let nothing stand in her way. She was both a snob and egalitarian but not racist. Rumour has it that she would have snared Earl Mountbatten had he not been blown away. She would have been invited to the Palace more often but rumour again has it that the Queen did not like to mix kisses and exchange germs with anyone but family and Dame B was a kisser.

I found her books in the late 1970's after Mum had her heart attack. She was battling the depression that is part and parcel of that illness and found it hard to concentrate on reading until I brought home a second hand copy of "A Hazard of Hearts" which she loved and read straight through. I was sent off to the book exchange and as luck sometimes happens, a lady had just brought in a huge cardboard box of Barbara's books. I bought every one and any other I could find. Her modern day romances were still a cut above Mills and Boon, interesting for her take on people but she came into her own with the historical romances, especially the Regency period. Tastes change and young women wanted more so the 'Bodice Ripper' sexplot books became the next best thing. Mum read a couple by Laurie McBaine but they didn't interest her.

Mum just wanted the pure romance. There were other authors of Regency Romances, Joan Aiken Hodge, Patricia Ormsby and the earlier queen of Regency, Georgette Heyer with her wonderful sharp and witty exchanges. But none of them seemed to have the delicate touch that Babs brought to her particular style of writing. I find it difficult to put into words how different it was. When she described a dress of tulle and sequins of a certain colour, it formed in your mind, well perhaps that was just Mum and me because of our interest in fabric and lace.

Her good writing only lasted maybe 10 years, after that they were little more than short stories in cardboard covers. I remember her indignation when a library refused her latest offering as not worthy of shelf space. I read it and they were right, total trash, not even worthy to be toilet paper. The good ones were good and well researched. Mum would often read a story then become interested in the history and follow it up. I bought a book on Regency fashions and she became as familiar with the fabrics and trims as she was with 20th C fabrics.

Dame Barbara always dictated her books to a secretary. She would recline comfortably on a couch with the inevitable Pekinese, full make-up plus eye lashes. She pinched ideas from everyone, she had a least 7 versions, in different eras, of "The Sheik". She used Georgette Heyer and portraits of society people she'd known in the 1920's and constantly re-set her own plots but she became repetitious. So much so that I used to think of her spinning a giant wheel, throwing the Peke on and wherever it landed making that the plot du jour.

Lord Lew Grade begain making the better books into lavishly costumed movies, the first being my mother's favourite, "A Hazard of Hearts". We couldn't wait for it to be released only to be disappointed in the heroine. Instead of the gentle but gutsy ringletted fair maid, there was Helena Bonham Carter. She spoke the lines like an automaton instead of acting and clumped through the movie like a milkman's carthorse. She was no match for the glorious Diana Rigg chewing up the scenery as the evil mother. In a cameo part as the father was the still handsome Stewart Granger who stole every scene he was in. The perfect Cartland hero was Marcus Gilbert who also starred in the next film.

"A Ghost in Monte Carlo" had the perfect heroine in Lisette Anthony, red-gold hair and beautiful eyes. The villians chewing up the scenery this time were Sarah Miles and the marvellous Oliver Reed. Three more movies were made before Lord Grade's death and his plans for a series were dropped. He'd have made a fortune for the studio had he continued with these instead of filming the turkey "Raising the Titanic" which almost sent him bankrupt.

I still curl up on a Saturday night with these videos when I need a comfort check. There have been times when I've stayed awake all night listening to Mum struggling to breathe and my stay awake books are always Cartlands. I was never interested in Barbara Taylor Bradford or Danielle Steele and my first loyalty is to Georgette Heyer but only one of her books was made into a movie, "The Reluctant Widow" starring Jean Kent and Guy Rolfe. Faithful to the book, the ABC often shows it on their late night movies and it's stood the test of time. But I have to hand it to the Dame whose art was in conjuring up an age that existed but didn't.

Ps. Mum is good. No chemo, no radiotherapy only pills for an unspecified time.

QUAKE REPORT

New Britain region, PNG: Earthquake 6.2 magnitude

Java, Indonesia: 6.3 magnitude

In Australia, this month alone, we have had 15 earthquakes ranging in magnitude 2.1 to 3 in Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory.

In America, on June 2, the US Military is planning to detonate a bomb in the Nevada Desert.

Its size........700 tonnes.

The reason........none given.

It will be interesting to see if Mother Nature replies with a bigger bang of her own.

WOMAN CHANGES MIND

Okay, I've changed my mind about going to the moon again. I'm back to going down and under the sea after watching the programme on the Tudor warship "Mary Rose" on SBS last night.
So many artifacts coming up from the silt and being preserved and restored are extending our knowledge of history that we should keep up underwater exploration.

To have a man replicate a musical instrument that has only been seen as an illustration and then be able to play it as it would have been heard at Henry Tudor's Court is living history.
I lovedthe fact that the last of the legendary English Long Bows have been found and preserved. That the arrows were found with them and analysis of the glue used for binding the flight and arrow head confirmed it was made with copper. The French had accused the English of using poisoned arrows and as copper causes massive infection in a wound then deliberately or inadvertently, the English were using a form of biological warfare.

The diving team now think they have found the bow castle which was the fighting platform of the ship buried deep in the silt and plan further dive seasons. The bow castle is in the photo above.

In the Mediterranean there has been a new development for marine archaeology. It's a robot called SeaBED, it's proper title is the autonomous underwater vehicle or AUV. SeaBED collected photos, sonograms and spectroscopic analyses that mapped an ancient shipwreck in a few days that would have taken scuba divers nearly seven years.

It uses a small mass spectroscope which allows non-intrusive chemical analysis of artefacts on the sea bed and a high resolution digital camera. SeaBED can go to 3000 metres to explore wrecks which is good news for archaeology. Depth means minimal turbulence, low sedimentation and no treasure hunters now or in the past.

Like the 'Mary Rose', the Mediterranean shipwrecks are pushing the boundaries of history. Phoenician ships have been dated to around 1200BC which alters the dating of the poet Homer's life. He was placed in the 8th Century BC because nobody thought the Phoenician sailors he mentions had sailed extensively until then.

GREY DAY FULL OF SUNSHINE

It is a grey day and it's cold but it's a happy day. I just didn't remember until I walked through a pile of canine excrement that ended up under the mandarin tree because I didn't shut the gate and idiots didn't have their stupid dog on a leash.

It was made worse because the leg went again half way back from the shop and I was limping. I changed into mangy old slippers and raided the tree for breakfast. I limped back inside, dragging leg, slippers and about 2 kgs of said excrement. I had so much on the slipper I had to throw them both out, well the right one would have been okay but I'm not a one legged sailor. I then had to back track through the entire house, put mandarins in kitchen, turn on computer in study, move chair closer to fire, in other words, crap on the move. (sounds like Howard overseas)

I was thinking to myself (not talking, that would be crazy) the Blight used to do this all the time and I would have to clean it up and then it hit me. TODAY, the 28th of May, 6 glorious years ago he fled to the welcoming arms of his Blonde, Miss Ugly Universe. How could I have forgotten the wonderful sounds of silence. The absence of the neverending snoring. The slamming of the doors, the banging of the gates, the crashing of the cutlery because he could never find a spoon. He even made a noise putting his teeth in.

This calls for another sip of his vintage port, you remember the bottle I hid in the roof. I don't want to over-indulge I want it to last another 6 years.

FRIDAY MUSINGS

Pithy title, couldn't think of anything else.
Saw my Ma-in-law for the first time in two months and she's suddenly very old. She was so pleased to see me that it was worth nearly cracking a fetlock to get there. Now I know why they say to warm up the muscles before walking, I thought walking did that. At least I didn't go down in front of the primary school or the whole lot would have poured out for show and tell. Limp, limp down to the bus stop to watch it sail past, limp to the next stop to keep the muscle working and the freezing teen in freezing hipster pants wanted to know where I bought my wrap because it looked so warm. Yea! taste in a teen but then she was blue with the cold.

My favourite part of moving is sitting, especially in a heated train. I read the ads everywhere but one today was a peach. Picture a huge building painted with clouds, a bow and arrows, a cute child with wings leaning on a mountain of toilet rolls and the heading...I LOVE YOUR BUM. This ad is so wrong on so many levels that if I started to analyze it, I'd have to brand pervert on my own forehead.

Anyway to more serious things. I'm very worried for Brendan Nelson. How many months since the lad took over Defence? I watched him today being terribly ministerial but I was distracted by the bags, uh no, suitcases under his eyes and the worst haircut I've seen in years. I bet Tony Abbott is on his knees thanking his God that he didn't get that portfolio after all.

I've finally watched the Insight programme on same-sex marriage all the way through. It was hard because I kept wanting to strangle Dreadnought but then I've spent years wanting to strangle DN. My suggestion to SBS is to have a follow up show but with people taken straight from the street, not Oxford St or out the front of Pell's Palace but ordinary people. Ask them about same-sex marriage and listen to the silence. I've given up writing to politicians about this issue because they don't reply and you're going to regret that Simon when you ask me to help you come election time. I've found it was better to talk to straight people about it and if 4 or 5 finally get that it is an issue then it's easier than banging my head on a poli's door.

This is the problem, straight people don't know there's a problem. Gays, lesbians, friends of them, activists, old bats like me who think equality is for all, Hillsong, chronic christians, Howard, Pell, all know about it but people in the street don't know and don't care. Until I tell them about Howard's "marriage is between a man and a woman" speech and then it's "What's it got to do with him?"

Now there's talk of the Federal Government overturning the ACT's new civil union law. Senator Guy Barnett wants to lobby for a federal law "preventing any State and Territory from enacting legislation that gives same sex relationships an equivalent or similar level of public recognition or legal status of marriage." To use an expression from Tony Abbott, what a snivelling grub. The world is not going to end because two people of the same sex stand up before their families and friends and declare their love and commitment to each other for life.

Rant over, now I'm going to soak my fetlock.

UPDATE: Gayerasmus always says it better. http://gayerasmus.blogspot.com

SHOPPING DAZE

It seems ages since I went shopping but it's only two weeks and the last time I wandered around with a mobile phone in my bra because mum was being operated on.

I had to walk out on her yesterday. It's the only way to stop the manipulating and I've been through it before so I'm not guilty. She just gives one more try then gets going when she knows the game's up. Our family doctor gave her heart, blood pressure and the cut line a clean bill of health so she can't use any of that.

Tuesday night I crashed. I crawled home, went to bed because I was cold and that should have warned me. When I got up to feed the cat and saw little dancing lights without any chemical assistance, I knew a mother- induced migraine had hit. It was a three pill headache and it's been a long time since I've had one of those. The cat was happy, I forgot to turn the fire off and the light and the television.

So I had a whole day to wander round Westfield. Boooooring! Not a decent male in sight to perve on. Food was expensive. The coffee was crap as usual even though I try different places every time. But joy, my lovely hand beaded wrap was found. I'm in two minds about it though, it was nice to get it back but what was so wrong with it that no-one wanted to run off with it?

I bought mumsy a new phone. I'm going to regret it. She presses a button and it's on speaker phone so she can talk forever without her arm getting tired holding a receiver. That has got to be bad. I've been watching the junk mail for a bargain but desktop phones are on the way out apparently. With her it's essential that we have at least one phone that cannot be moved (or put in a box) because she leaves them everywhere even the letterbox. We know she was supposed to carry it when she went outside in case she fell down but she was supposed to bring it back as well.

I bought a toothbrush, Chinese, 95 cents.

Update: Tony Abbott called Kelvin Thompson a snivelling grub. Well done Big Ears.

Update: John Howard has become Australia's most travelled leader clocking up 391 days overseas. There goes my theory on how unsafe air travel is.

HOW WE GOT A MOON

The moon was formed about 4.5 billion years ago. Simulations performed by researchers at Southwest Research Institute TM (SwRI) and the University of California Santa Cruz show that a single impact by a Mars-sized object in the late stages of Earth/ formation account for an iron-depleted Moon and the masses and angular momentum of the Earth-Moon system.

The "Giant Impact" theory has been know and accepted by scientists for more than a decade because it proves an explanation for the low density of the moon. About 50 million years after the birth of the solar system, a planet of the size of Mars collided with the proto-earth. At this time the Earth was in the latter stages of its formation and had about 90% of the mass it has today. Due to the enormous mass involved the collision must have been very energetic.
Most of the mass of the earth probably melted and major portions would have evaporated.
The debris from the collision formed a ring around the earth, out of which the moon was born.
Subsequently, the moon moved further away from the earth and slowed down the rotation of the earth. The processes are still on-going. You can read the rest of this at http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.htlm?pic=5773

So that is why earth rocks from the asteroid bombardment 3.8 billion years ago will still be found on the Moon and why Mars rocks can be found on Earth from the same asteroid bombardment.

NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY UNSERIOUS

I have fallen into the advertising trap. I am shamed beyond belief. I bought a new state of the mouth toothbrush. It not only cleans my teeth but it massages the gums stimulating the circulation and making my whole mouth a glistening cave of good dental health.

I decided to indulge after I ran out of my 95c 'made by loving hands' chinese toothbrushes that have bristles so hard that wearing them down to the nub takes months.

This super dooper colgate has bristles inside rubber prongs and is a pretty colour. I don't know what I expected but it certainly wasn't like putting a live octopus in my mouth. The rubber prongs have a mind of their own, getting in the way of tongue and teeth and they move like tentacles and they don't massage and the bristles don't reach to clean. Sod advertising.

TO THE MOON

I'm always going on about how we should spend more money on exploring the deep oceans instead of planning on another trip to the moon but now I might change my mind. It has to do with impact events and the effect they've had on the Earth. There could be tonnes of earth rock on the moon which could contain fossils or organic signals of microbial activity at the start of life on this planet.
The evidence of life on Earth as long ago as 3.8 billion years is based on rock chemistry rather than fossils. Finding sedimentary rocks of the kind that could contain fossils older than 3.5 billion years is a virtually impossible task considering plate tectonics. They still could be found as geologists discovered Ophiolites, the remnants of the ancient seafloor crust which had escaped the tectonic re-cycling.
The moon's surface is littered with rocks many of which could be from Earth and older than found here. Asteroid impacts fling huge quantities of material into space.

The K/T (Cretaceous/Tertiary) event which is generally thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs has left an impact layer spread all over the world. While most material fell back to Earth, some would have been propelled into space even landing on Mars but the closest landing would have been the moon.

In 2001, John Armstrong joined with L. Wells and G. Gonzalez to calculate how much material would reach the moon after a large impact. They calculated that the impact of a body, 100 metres in diameter would deposit about 120 kilograms of Earth rock on each squae kilometres of the lunar surface.

Between 4.2 and 3.8 billion years ago, in a heavy bombardment of a solar system wide event, Earth was struck by thousands of asteroids that were K/T sized or bigger. So rocks landing on the moon and containing evidence of the beginning of life on Earth would still be lying around. As life on Mars and Venus might have been going around this stage, there may be proof of this as well.

It's worth a trip to answer a rocketship load of questions about our origins. As long as we keep the military in any country from having anything to do with it.

MOVE ALONG, NOT MUCH HERE

From a US study - Gossiping wins us friends and boosts our self-confidence and the cattier it is, the better.
The researchers claim shared negative attitudes towards others can "promote closeness and friendship".
But, why is there always a 'but', the researchers had to admit that gossip had its drawbacks and that "badmouthing others can hurt feelings, create conflicts and stir up a cauldron of of trouble".

They didn't say how much that research cost or how long it took. An afternoon at any school mothers club would have told them the same thing.

And now one for the really silly file. Heinz is introducing ready made baked beans on toast. They have actually frozen two slices of bread with a pocket of baked beans inside which only needs to be heated in a toaster. Apparently it's done in such a way that the beans won't fall out.
At the risk of being called misogynistic, it had to be thought up by men for the use of men.

Stop making things easy, teach the idiots to cook.

I'M GLAD HE'S HENRY

Older men? I'm glad I can see Henry and I'm keeping the pics that show him in all his glory to myself. I'm glad he's got green eyes. I love the glad game.

POLLYANNA'S GLAD GAME

Remember Pollyanna, the missionary's kid who wanted a doll for Christmas and got a pair of crutches instead? Her loving father taught her the glad game, that is to find something to be glad about in everything. In this case, to be glad she didn't need the crutches so they could be sent to someone who did need them. Pollyanna liked this and played the game all her life, I'd have hit father in the crotch with the crutch.

I bring this up because a couple of nasty things have happened to make me play the glad game.
At Larvatus Prodeo, a little man called Civitas didn't like the fact that I had a pension. I am, according to him, living a lifestyle I can't afford, riding on the backs of the taxpayers of Australia. This is strange because I believe he is an American. Well, am I glad I'm not him.

In another comment thread I have been called a whingeing gold digging skank. I am so glad about that. I looked up 'skank' at Wiki and have immediately revised my slang. Nothing ages one so as not being up to date with the slang du jour.

Whingeing - all the time. Always complaining about a war I didn't vote for, politicians' greed, the weather, the tattslotto numbers are fixed, football is boring, Bill Muhlenberg is still breathing. Yep all the time.

Gold digger - A slang term for women who date wealthier (often older) men as a pretense for spending their money. As anyone who reads this blog knows, older men do not figure in my life. Henry is not an older man nor are any of the other gorgeous creatures I post here. I don't visit Boy Box for the intellectual stimulation.

Skank - a pejorative slang term referring to one who is undesirable as a result of unacceptable behaviour. (the Bear is always threatening to throw me off his blog for frivolity). Most often this behaviour relates to drug use, sexual practices (I don't have to practice), and/or personal hygiene and style. No drugs, I'm on welfare so can't afford them. Personal hygiene, wtf, I shower every night and go to bed drenched in perfume but don't tell Civitas, I'm on welfare. Style, Audrey Hepburn meets Sophie Tucker which is the age of most of my clothes but I do have delusions of grandeur. I make my own tiaras and the cardboard in my shoes are matching colours.

Continuing...Originally associated with a bad smell and/or scummy or dirty surface, it has come to refer to someone who is either or both physically repugnant for their filth and morally or socially repugnant for their behaviour and demeanor, most often sexually. Leaving out the sex bit, this would apply to most politicians, our Prime Miniature, the Preznit, Osama bin lid, Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Big Brother 06, Pope Benny, Prince Chuck & Fk (thanks B) Paris Hilton (I had to put a token blonde in).

Prostitutes are often associated with the term though in reference to a usually non-whoring person. In the United States, the term is used as a synonym for slut and/or whore. Not in this life but I possibly could have been a demi-mondaine in another, not for the money though, diamonds are still a girl's best friend.

So there we are, I glad I'm up to date and will stop calling skanks, slags. I just love the glad game.

THE WEEK IN REVIEW

So it's not a week yet but it feels like it.

The Four Corners and Insight programmes have people talking about gays and lesbians. Good.

My mother is from Krypton. She's indestructable.

My hair is falling out. It's falling out now when the stress is gone. Life's a mystery.

I fell off the vegetarian wagon last night. I apologize to every little hoof'd thing that was on the pizza I ate. I loved it, I enjoyed every mouthful but I'm back on the veg again. It's just that I was so tired and hungry that I would have eaten the Pope's underpants.

I haven't seen my garden in the daylight for about a month so surprise me. The mandarin tree is loaded with golden goodies. They're huge and they're sweet. Decision time, eat them or mandarin jam or mandarin marmalade or mandarin sauce for ice-cream. Life's hard.

John Howard is not good for America. Every time he visits, there's a disaster. Did you see how far the stock market dropped today?

Our soldiers are the best in the world. They do their job even if they have to buy their own equipment to do it better. They have managed to not get a lot of themselves killed. So why do we have such incompetents at the top? If they can't remember to get a cd out of a computer how can they run an army?

I'm going to see the Da Vinci Code, l'll like the movie, hate Tom Hanks but it could have been Tom Cruise.

I have to go, I've missed Big Brother and Smallville's on. Life's a Tom Wellings joy.

WATCHING CSI

You would think after the last few days that I would be sick of blood and stitches and stuff but I love watching CSI. Although Ch 9 is cutting its own throat by repeats because I don't worry if I miss an episode, I'll catch it again on the 2nd or 3rd repeat.

I know it's not as easy as they make out to do all these snazzy computer thingies but I would love to do something with this photograph. It was the last photo taken by my son and to be able to look into his daughters' eyes, to be able to see what it was that he was doing to make them look at him in such wonder.

What I wouldn't give for a CSI diploma.

KIDS' PLAY

Finally caught up on my Sunday reading and the article on cubby houses for kids brought a cartload of memories from years back. The article reflected on the way kids today don't play outside so no cubbyhouses they have built for themselves.

We didn't build one in our backyard. We simply buried Dad's Morris Minor up to the mudguards and turned the boys loose. It also doubled as the rabbit's hutch, he lived in and under the boot while the neighbourhood gang crammed in the front and back seats.

It was an education on how parents influence their child's behaviour. Bossy mother's kid was all, 'I'll do the driving and don't get anything not on that shopping list." The kid with the speedster father couldn't wait to grab the steering wheel and go vroom vroom and he didn't change when he did get his licence. He even brought his own horn to sound.

Their imagination ran riot and that old car became everything including a stagecoach when they harnessed three labradors to the front. They rigged up the garden hose on the roof and played submarines. Slingshots armed with rabbit pellets were shot at the cats when the car was on African Safari.

It never seemed to bother Harry Houdini, the rabbit, who lived up to his name and was always AWOL. Rabbit proof fences were not the Blight's forte. I know the kids did a lot more than this but I burned all my diaries when they started to read. Who knew the neighbours were going to turn into upwardly mobile yuppies and move away. The dirt I had in those little books...wow!

Back to cubbyhouses. It wasn't only in the backyard but in the house they used their imagination. I didn't care about neat and tidy like the rest of the Stepford Wives in the street so it was always kid central here. I don't know how many times I had to re-hang the curtains or nearly strangle myself in make-believe ship's rigging of bed sheets. I'd open the bedroom door and throw paper bags of food in then go away for a peaceful read.

It's nice to look back and think how much fun it was. Even when the budding architect removed the ceiling in the wardrobe to see what was above it. I thought the possums were loud but try four kids galloping over the roof. The good thing is local government has dropped the regulations about cubbyhouses and we no longer have to go through a permit situation.

When I get rich, my cubbyhouse will be a glass gazebo with wifi connection and a bar fridge full of Dom Perignon.

WONDER WOMAN IS HOME

The woman must have vampire blood to have healed as quickly as she has. No external stitches just a row of steri strips and two holes where the drainage tubes came out. Remember the drama about the tubes and how I had to have lessons etc etc. All for nowt.

When I got home I went round and put all the radios on the station she had on in the hospital. It was 1940's music and she loved it. After I plugged in the one in the bedroom she told me to change it because it reminded her of the hospital. Fine, change everyone of the bloody things back.

Arranged all the tablets she normally takes in their proper place next to the water jug. Did I have to put them there they smelled like the hospital. Okay, that was it, lost it. She told the nurses she'd have a shower when she got home so she wouldn't get too chilled leaving. "You smell like the hospital!" roars patient even-tempered loving daughter who is wondering how many years they give for matricide. I couldn't do it, I might be banged up for life with someone exactly like her. I missed my chance anyway when she discovered the black spider in the bedclothes which I never put there. I'm too kind to animals but she had enough strength to bash it to death.

The Brick Outhouse, taking his cue from me, refused to give her ice-cream until she ate all her food. She was glad to be home but nervous too. We see the specialist on Wednesday who will tell us exactly what was taken out and then she might settle back into her routine of irritating the crap out of me. Can anyone tell me if Ebay sells arachnids?

TWENTY-FOUR

There is no such thing as a life cut short

Only a life that has been lived for the perfect length of time

Euan James

18.4.1971 -10.8.1995

SHE'S BAAACK

About that restful day I was supposed to have, scrap it. I did crash until midday when my sister rang, just a bit upset. There aren't enough home nurses for the breast cancer patients so when they knew she was a nurse, they assumed that she would care for the drainage tubes so they could send Mum home early. Sis was on the spot and had to say yes but she can't do it. She's nursing in a geriatric sub-acute ward and it's full on hard yakka. So I'm out of bed and half way to the hospital like Madame DeFarge looking for heads to roll. When it was explained just what was involved and that Mum sitting in a bed just to have tubes drained was a waste of hospital space that someone else could need then I volunteered to learn the procedure and have sis supervise the first couple of times. They gave me a video to watch and a book to take home for study and it's not a problem. I'll go back tomorrow and watch the nurse do the draining and the old cockroach can come home Monday, that's MONDAY not Sunday because I'm religious and I don't work on the Sabbath, I read the papers and eat chocolate. I'm very religious about my chocolate.

I wasn't being impolite when I referred to her as the old cockroach, she'd out live a cockroach. After my talk with the nurses, I walked in to find her sitting up, no drip in, good colour and, for her, coherent. She's already been up, walking to the toilet and giving a lesson on colostomies to a trainee and complaining about the food. Golly goshness, they expect her to eat fresh vegetables, what a trial.

The tumour was much bigger than expected even with all the scans and tests that were done. There were, for a better word, tentacles growing across her breastbone which were scraped off but nothing in the right breast. They're now talking some radiotherapy but we'll jump that hurdle when we come to it. There'll be a word with the doctor who wants her back at the hospital two days after she comes home, just to look at the drain tubes. That will be 5 minutes for him and about 2 hours for us getting Mum there and back. He can visit or send a nurse or if he's game he can talk to me.

Just in case Civitus is lurking. This surrogate nursing doesn't mean my DSP is a fraud. I'll be living on pain killers, being tired and aching in every bone for the time it takes for her to need me. It's a thank you for everything my sister did for my father that I couldn't. And think how much money I'm saving the system, I'm almost paying for my own pension.

I'VE SAID IT BEFORE

And I'll say it again, the only things left standing after a nuclear attack will be cockroaches, John Howard and me Mother.

I'm just back from the hospital and I can report her mouth is in working order. "Fix my oxygen tube. Adjust the pillow, my neck hurts. I'm thirsty when can I have water?" If she ever has to have another op it will be a mouthectomy.

No intensive care unit, not even a night in the high dependency unit. They did lie though, she's in pain. Not as much as this morning. Somewhere in the world, I hope there's a doctor having four injections of radioactive dye in his scrotum, with a woman standing by, saying it will only sting a little.

I walked around Westfield doing the rest of her messages carrying a mobile phone and worrying about not hearing it that I didn't notice that at some stage my wrap had fallen off. I made that myself with fringing and passementerie and beads and as my sister said whoever picked it up is selling it on Ebay as a tent embassy. I've reported it lost, perhaps it will stagger home covered in dirt and grass like Lassie.

Tomorrow I am not getting out of bed. I have five New Scientists to read and big red apples to eat. And if that bloody woman rings me at 7.30 in the morning I swear I'll disconnect her.

HOUSTON, WE HAVE LIFTOFF

That's right tomorrow morning we carry (literally) Mumsy to the hospital. She has been off the Voltaren for nearly two weeks and the rheumatoid arthritis has galloped. The knee joints, hands, neck and feet are red and swollen but she's still walking up and down the hall to keep some movement. She would be bedridden without the morphine. The bad news is that it will take nearly two weeks for the medication to work when she is back on it.

She took it quite well when I said I couldn't stay there at night. Going back to sleep in one's childhood bedroom might be some other's dream but I need my woolly cosy bed. Her forgetfulness is catching, last night I stapled a cheque to the envelope and threw out the doctor's bill and that was after spending an hour searching for the cheque book. It was in my elaborate filing system which is a plastic gift bag from the $2 shop.

Now just a few little things before I go.

*takes off ladylike demeanor and puts to one side* Fuck off Civitas. I never know how to reply to people like you so I go away and think about it and I have. My contribution to society over the years is 100 per cent more than you will ever give.

Lucy Tartan, I admire you and think it's disgraceful that you do not receive the monetary rewards you deserve. The fact that you keep teaching and enjoy it says heaps. I wish I had your brain.

RH, I was going to dance nekid in the moonlight and cast a spell on you for being cruel to brownies. Now I must thank you for your defence although I think you were secretly pleased to find a victim worthy of your vitriol.

Now I'm going to take some painkillers and go to bed ready for whatever tomorrow brings.

ANOTHER INTEREST

I have written about some of my interests, oceanography, chocolate, pretty men so I thought it was about time to bring on the impact craters. I'll start with one that's been tamed.

This is the Steinheim crater with the village of Sontheim. Lucky broadbanders can GoogleEarth it at Latitude N48deg41' Longitude E10deg4'.
It's diameter is 3.8 kilometres and has an approximate age of 15 million years. It's a complex crater with the wooded area being the central uplift.
Complex craters are formed when gravity causes the initially steep crater walls to collapse downward and inward. The central peak forms as the deep crater floor rebounds from the compressional shock of impact. Think of a stone dropped from height into a bowl of water.
The peak consists of material that has been intensely fractured, shows faulting and shocked metapmorphism which is the irreversible chemical of physical changes in rocks by shock waves.




Now here is one in the wild. Bosumtwi is located 30 kilometres south of Kumasi in Ghana. Latitude N6deg30' Longitude W1deg25' and is 10.5 kilometres in diameter and approx 1.03 million years old. The centre of the crater is completely filled by Lake Bosumtwi and has a preserved well-defined central uplift structure near the northwest-central part of the lake.
This is one of the youngest impact craters on earth and the heat in the crater would have taken 10-20,000 years to dissipate.

Climate researchers have drilled into the 250 metres of mud at the bottom of the lake to take samples of deposits recording a million years of the African climate going back through several ice ages. The lake is ideal for this as it's shielded from stong winds and no rivers flow through to stir up the sediments, the layers of which go undisturbed to the very bottom of the crater.

THE LONG AND TIRING WAIT

I have watched the TV news, looked at papers on line and still can't find anything about the doctors going back to work. On Monday I'll have to call and at least get some idea how long the wait for the op will be. It's very much a 'Catch 22'. Mum has to move to keep the joints from locking but the longer she goes without anti-inflammatories, the harder it is for her to walk which means more intensive physio after the op. We'll forget the brain, that's just not functioning on four cylinders at all.

She tried to cook tea last night, steak and kidney pie but nearly blew up the house trying to light the gas. This was at 5 o'clock which is the limit of her endurance. It took me 5 minutes to make dumplings, throw them in the pot with the S&K so tea was ready in 20 minutes. I would say it was a success when my sister even ate a bowl of it. The brickouthouse hid the remaining dumplings and ate them with cheese sauce (which sounds revolting) when he came back from work. I haven't made dumplings in years so I was pleased I hadn't lost the touch and it was a recipe given to me by an old lady when I started cooking for my father. My sister remembers whenever I was cooking them, he would roar the minute she appeared, 'Don't lift the bloody lid',
when usually that's exactly what she'd just done. She'd hide until he did the honours and pronounced them 'perfect'.

I have found the bed in the sewing room. Everything is stacked on its shelf and the boxes are labelled and stacked. The sewing machine is out of the lounge and tucked in the corner as is the overlocker. The only thing left in the lounge is her work table and embroidery box so she can pick up where she left off. I don't think there is a cardboard box any where that hasn't been checked even finding one that had fallen behind the couch. That went home with me as it contained pale pink frosted glass baubles I'd given her for Christmas at least four years ago, even I had forgotten them. Only one more thing to attend to and that is the window seat in the bedroom. It is jam packed with ribbons, all colours and sizes and unbelievably jumbled. When I go through that she can sit in bed and tell me what to do which I will ignore. I can do a really good ignore these days.

Sometimes it was a walk down memory lane. I found dress patterns in a bottom drawer which she said to throw away but my interest in fashion wouldn't let me do that. Besides, there was my wedding dress which looked way better on Jean Shrimpton than it did on me. The first dress I made at school which the old bat in charge gave me 5 marks out of 100 for. So it was 4 months late, we were poor and it took that long to pay off the lay-by. She didn't think a black dress was appropriate for my age and especially not fine wool. I wore that dress until it literally fell to pieces. It also taught me to read a pattern before I bought it, the damn thing was cut all in one and joined with gussets under the arms. I have never made anything with a gusset since.

Mum appreciated the fact that I went through everything before it was thrown out. Eight boxes of bits and bobs went to two friends. I found my father's opal ended ball point pen which disappeared years ago and a letter written to him, by Mum, on a visit to Sydney in 1957. In fact, I surprised at how many little pieces of his have surfaced, almost as though he saying, 'I'm still here for you'. Although he probably wouldn't have cared for the swearing I did when I caught her putting them in a plastic bag ready to go into a little box. I allowed her the box and ditched the bag. We had enough trouble looking for the soap the other day, found inside a little bag, inside a big bag.

Tomorrow is going to be a terrible day. Rain, hail, sleet and freezing wind. It's craft market day and I will be home in bed. Luvverly.

CANCEL THE ALERT

Loaded the old chook up and off to have a heart scan and chest X-ray. The heart scan table is too high and since she's been off the anti-inflammatories for a week, it was hard work hauling her on to it. She's game, didn't swear once. Five minutes for the X-ray and back home to the bad news.

The surgery has been cancelled because of a shortage of skilled personnel. They are trying to work out who's going to have surgery next week but as I explained, if she's too long without the tablets then she'll really be unable to move. The trouble is that a mother with kids is going to be put ahead of an old lady when it comes to priority.

At least all the tests are finished and she can stay at home and practice driving me crazy. She's getting very good at it. Hopefully I can sneak back to blogging if I can find where the fragments of my mind are hiding.

TWENTY-THREE

I have no idea what he had stuck up his shirt or how he rode a trail bike with it but he was happy. This was the year he jumped out of a plane and remembered the parachute but forgot to land on his size 12 feet. The backside was bruised for a week.

He became a father again, another beautiful girl.

He had a part-time job tending the boat for the dive club. He loved to climb the hill above Cheviot Beach and watch the ocean. He was thinking about learning to dive. He'd need it for his marine biology.

It was also the year his Grandfather died. It was late when we called and the babies were sleeping so we told him to come in the morning. He came anyway, without our knowing. He sat on his bike, at the top of the street, until the hearse left. He followed it all the way to the funeral home because he didn't want his 'Grumpy' to go alone.

MAYDAY!

I was hoping that it was Sunday when I woke up this morning because I stay home on Sunday and read the papers and eat chocolate.

It was Monday and it was raining and I had to go to Mother's.

I went outside and picked a lemon from the tree and the branch broke. I ended up halfway across the lawn flat on my back. The grass was wet and it was drizzling.

I'm really not going to like this week.

If I remember, I said this week was for keeping her mind focused. Scrap that.

I now know I'm not very good with two things, babies and little old ladies who are going in for surgery and are in pain and don't know what day it is.

I will begin to self-mutilate if I have to stay more than three nights.

I'm really not going to like this entire month.

RECALLING FATHER TED

I'm frazzled having spent the best part of two hours trying to juggle appointments then finding out they've replaced one hour long heart stress test with another which means we can do everything locally. Through the swearing and cursing, I hear Ma.

Mother: When you come out of the aneasthetic, your leg's in a big machine, isn't it?

Me: Where in hell did you pull that from?

Mother: What?

Me: Why would they do that with your leg when you're having a boob removed?

Mother: Well you did!

Me: I've never had a boob off.

Mother: You had your leg in a big machine when you had the knee replaced.

Me: WTF has that got to do with a boob?

Mother: Wasn't it painful?

Me: Bloody painful and why are we talking about bloody knees?

Mother: Aunt Selma's having her knee done and I want to know how much pain she'll be in so I
can enjoy it.

Me: *Pokes eye out with a ball point.*

I'm in the sewing room, looking at a Mount Everest of lace and material on one side and foothills of ironing on the other. The woman has a mania for keeping cardboard boxes in case they're needed. any size or shape, it doesn't matter. Unfortunately it's hereditary because I can't throw away a pretty shaped glass jar even to sending myself insane trying to get the last of the leatherwood honey out of the tall, square shaped bottle it comes in. My sister skipped this gene and throws everything out including, on one occasion, the phone books and the phone.

Me: Why is the vacuum cleaner standing in a box?

Mother: I put it there.

Me: Why?

Mother: It's out of the way.

Me: It's a heavy vac, so you lift it up and put it in an empty box. Why didn't you pick up the box and chuck it out?

Mother: I don't like bending over and the box is handy, the Hoover fits in it nicely.

Me: *bangs head on wall* *repeatedly* *very hard*

CONFUSION

Mum and I had only one more hospital to visit but now it's two as I've decided to split the tests.
The two at Monash Clayton are going to take 3 hours and that's as much as she can take at the moment. So X-ray and blood tests will be at Moorabbin which is closer and where the op will take place.

I spent the day going over everything we did yesterday. She remembers some of it but there's a point where exhaustion just takes over.

My Mother has enormous willpower to survive. What she is terrified of is losing her ability to think and be in control of her life. Finally she has talked about this but it's not something we can be truthful about. My sister has been a geriatric nurse for nearly 30 years and has noticed Mum's increasing, but not major, confusion over the last 12 months. The same routine followed every day, with the craft market once a month has kept her focused and on track.

It's not lack of concentration, it's an organic degeneration caused by the huge amount of medication she takes and a decrease of oxygen to the brain simply because she can't move around much. That's why it's been so noticable in the past two weeks of going to different hospitals. She becomes unfocused and disorientated which disappears the minute we're back in the house in familiar surroundings.

I can understand this fear. I think it's something that lurks in the back of everyone's mind, that we might lose our independence completely. I'll spend the next fortnight with her, just tidying her sewing things away ready for when she wants to start again although she'll never go back to the craft market. I found a beautiful piece of red wool today that she had forgotten so when I left she was deciding whether to make a dress or a suit. This is how we're going to keep her mind in good condition, now and after the 4th of May.

MEANDERINGS

Another hospital and another 3 to 4 hours tomorrow. If I am tired then Mum is exhausted and we both still have this virus. It took every ounce of self-control to not cough having the chest scan so they only had to do it once but she did it. The bone scan was something else because the narrow bed only came down so far and she had to use steps and that hurt but she did it again.
Over the years we have become expert at opening Doctors' reports with tampering with the seals so we know there is no cancer in the bones.

I spent the time reading a book, a supernatural fantasy. The usual sleepy village awakened by an ancient evil and this gem by the homely cook, "a cat is a man who's forgotten his shape and a taste of the good life might jog his memory". I'd believe that after looking at 'He who must be fed constantly' who was sleeping on his feather cushion wrapped in an expensive mohair rug.

I watched the programme, Battlefield Detectives, the other night. Instead of just the battle, they looked at the terraine and what effect it had on the outcome. The geology of the area was just as much an instrument of war as a gun. The Turks were also underestimated, being thought of as undisciplined rabble but they were fighting for their country against an invading force. Fighting on home soil, the biggest incentive to not give in and another lesson leaders never seem to learn.

Kim Beazley's health is being asked about in Canberra. Now that's something I've been on about for a long time. He has never seemed to be in good health to me.

I've missed my computer. I've missed blogging. I missed the Cruise spawning. I'm not going to miss this virus from Hell when it goes so now I'm going to catch up on all the news for the past week.

WELL I DID ASK

We had a huge fire in the vicinity today and I saw what it would be like in Iraq to step out of the front door to helicopters hovering, sirens screaming and billowing clouds of black acrid smoke.
The difference is that I knew it wasn't a car bomb or missile and that probably there wouldn't be any mangled bodies, hopefully no bodies.

The smoke is still inside the house but we've been told it doesn't have any chemicals or particles in it that would harm. If it would harm the virus that's taken hold of my throat I'd welcome any particles.

Everyone I know has or has had this virus. It doesn't let go easily, the after effects are just as nasty as the main illness. Time for lemon and ginger tea with lots of honey except every lemon on the tree is green. Murphy's law in action. I inspect the tree every morning and any lemon with a hint of yellow is whipped off and in a cup. I've been trying not to take flu and cold tablets until the sinuses started to make me want to fall down a lot. Murphy's law no. 2. Stocks of cold and flu tablets are running low, not only because of the virus but because of idiots and their speed kitchens. The chemist told me today that soon you'll have to have a doctor's prescription to get a box of sudafed which may or may not be true but damn damn damn if it is.

When my sinuses want to clog up in the middle of the night, I want instant relief. When do I want it, NOW, not in the morning after I've seen a doctor and paid out a small fortune and probably fallen over as well.

The entire family has the virus, my cousin has the virus, my friends have the virus. Why is it here so early? It's not even Winter when you expect a virus. How many visitors did Melbourne have for the Commonwealth Games? Which one of them sneaked in with this lingering virus and generously left it as a gift? Can I sue the Commonwealth Games for putting my health in jeopody? Now that was a lemon that didn't ripen regardless of who said it was a success.

EGG DAY

This is a FAIRY PENGUIN.

FAIRY. PENGUIN.

It's also a little blue penguin with the usual latin name but to Victorians it's a FAIRY PENGUIN.

Leave it alone you politically correct Queensland nutters.

I repeat it's a FAIRY PENGUIN.


Second stupid thing in today's paper, Victoria Beckham. The skinny tart's always good for a laugh but today's photo is a peach. Taken on the ski slopes, she's wearing a faux fur zip up jacket and hipster ski pants. That is pants that are showing an inch of unclothed body above them. But at least she's wearing proper gloves to keep her hands warm. Bad luck about the kidneys.

DAY AFTER GF BEFORE ED

Finally after tracking the cat down to get a good photo, I get this, lemon tree and grass and the

animal's impression of this cat.



I caught him again last night, lounging on his mohair rug, on his feather cushion in front of my gas fire. I'm thinking of re-naming him Lord Lucan for the way he hates having his photo taken.

The weather has taken a turn for the football.

My spine is still hurting but it's mending. My sportsmed unit died last week so I ordered new electrode pads and a new lead. Memo to self: next time put the unit on lowest setting with anything new attached. The new things are a tad more efficient, 3.5 will send a large body of woman into orbit so 2 will do nicely for pain relief.

I have posted a question over at Diogenes for the bear to answer but I'll put it here as well.
If anybody up there, God, ID, Alien comedians, suddenly put the Iraq situation here and moved our peace to Iraq, how would we cope?

How would we cope with the sudden noise of death?
What would they do with the silence of peace?

If there is ever going to be a solution we have to be able to put ourselves in someone else's shoes.

Happy Egg Day tomorrow.
Frivolous way to end a serious question but I like Egg Day and it's my blog.

A VISIT

Now this is what makes us forget the trials of bringing up children, beautiful grandchildren.

I've had to wait to ask their permission to put their photo up but here are my treasures.

After walking down the street with them yesterday I am now in favour of bringing in the compulsory wearing of the burkha. It was all I could do not to yell at one P-plater to keep his eyes on the road and off my eldest. She is a stunner though, 13 years old and 166cm in height and still growing. The youngest is the opposite, in the 1950's she would have been called a pocket Venus. A pocket Venus with a plastic tattoo on her cheek and a permanent mouthful of bubble gum through which she talks a million words a minute. She's happy there is one boy in the class who is smaller than she is, she uses him as a leaning post.

They were very good about the computer but my mobile phone now rings loud enough to be heard in Sydney. I did ask them to teach me how to copy and paste, ignoring the withering looks and 'Nannie, surely you can do that, it's so simple'. Well Nannie is simple and still can't do it because they shot through it so quickly I couldn't keep up and I wasn't going to ask twice.
I showed them the blog and it was just like that Peggy Lee song, 'Is that all there is?' No it doesn't change colour, blast music and have links and no I haven't learnt how to put my cyber spider in the corner. Eldest has her own website and it changes colour and has a background that moves, smart little rotter.

I couldn't even stun them with my culinary arts. It's been so long since I cooked for more than one person it was a real strain to remember what went on when. I did remember to take the Sara Lee out of the freezer and youngest remembered to take the bubble gum out of her mouth.

The cat had a total meltdown and disappeared. He is still twitchy but back on the mohair rug, with one eye open.

I always worry that they'll be bored but it's why they like coming for a few days. I don't make them do anything. They lie around wrapped in doonas watching TV and winding down from the family visits and late nights. Nobody can believe they are in bed and asleep by 10.30.

We hit Westfield today and I remembered what girls do, they eat and try on clothes. They like the expensive shops for looking but go for Target and Big W for the bargains. They love to accessorize and have teenage total recall for the better bargain in the first place we looked. I am becoming more in favour of the burkha idea as school kids start to herd into the centre. Some of those boys' eyes were swivelling faster than Mad-eye Moody.

It will probably be another 12 months until I see them again and the one thing we don't do is promise to keep in touch and I never push for it. Teens these days are under so much pressure and it's so far removed from the carefree days I remember when the biggest worry was finding the money for a can of hair spray. They're sensible and they know I'm always here. So much easier being a Grandmother than a parent.

I SEE A LONG WINTER

I feel as though I have been in the twilight zone for the last two weeks and it doesn't look like ending any time soon.

I took Mum to the cancer specialist today and he is quite certain that the procedure won't be too difficult for her. Just to make certain we have to go to the anaesthesia clinic at Monash where they will make sure she'll survive that. Today there were heart tests and blood tests. Friday, 21st April, a full body bone scan and CT of chest and abdomen which will take nearly all day.

I'm glad no-one took my blood pressure today. Everytime we see a new doctor I find out just how long she's been hiding this from us even down to the fact that she did have pain in the beginning. My sister says I will have to calm down but I figure that if I get all the anger out now then later, when I really need it, I'll be calm.

The good part of this week is seeing my granddaughters for the first time in 16 months. Only two days and one night but any crumb is better than none. At least the impending visit made me do some housework and this time I did remember to take the naked guys off the fridge door. Last time they were at the gate and I was shoving photos in the freezer. The computer photos I'll hide in the recycle bin and hope they don't go right to the bottom of the favourites list.

I have film in the camera and I'll ask if I can post photos. I've been told the eldest is a real handful but I should have her straight in about an hour. There'll be a few rules about this computer too. No locking me out with cryptic passwords and no signing me up with lavalife again and definitely no logging me in to every msn group in Queensland. At least they will see Mum looking well which is a bonus.

I haven't seen the news or read a paper so I'm off to the blogs to see what I've missed.

If it seems that I've lost my sense of humour.... my ice pack has split, my TENS unit has fritzed and the hot water tap came off in my hand as I was having a shower at midnight.

HALF AND HALF NEWS

Here are the two things the Brick Outhouse loves most in the world, even his car comes a long way third.

She has a malignant breast tumour but it's not too bad yet. The specialist wants to operate but he hasn't read her history or seen her yet. He wanted us to go in tomorrow morning at 7.30 but her legs don't work until 11.00 so it will be early next week. We'll listen to him and hopefully he'll listen to us and then it's up to Mum to make her own decision. When she told Aunt Pattie the news and said she wasn't sure about treatment, Aunt Pattie told her not to give up so easily.
Troll!

She went into shock and I made her go back to bed. She wanted her wool doona on. Fine, so I go looking in the cupboard and can't find it. "It's on the third shelf in its bag." she says. I still can't find the bag. "That pink flowered bag in front." She means doona cover, stupid me, didn't switch on the mind-reading machine. She's still getting into bed, giving me instructions and trying to adjust pillows and crying. That woman can multi-task. I finally get everything smooth and in place, and she says, "I don't like the pattern on this side, can you turn it over?" I turn it over after threatening to fecking bury her in it.

I am really mad that our doctor had to go chasing the pathology report when it should have been sent to him yesterday. I also have to go back to the hospital and pick up the X-rays which they forgot to give me. I'm pissed that I got a salad ready this morning because I've been too tired to eat when I get home and the weather turned to icebergs and there's no way you can heat salad, add the ice-pack I throw on the spine and I'm not happy Jan.

STILL WAITING

I wasn't going to post anything until I had good or bad news but venting is good for the soul.
Mum has two sisters, Aunt Selma and Aunt Pattie and yes, the names are deliberate. We also refer to them as the troll sisters usually with a few f and c words in front of troll.

Mum was to have visited Aunt Selma this week. After all that has happened with the ultrasound, allergic to the gel and the biopsy, one highly bruised boob and the interminable waiting for the results, Mum decided not to go. Aunt Selma said she had no guts and she'd be better off if she got herself moving. Aunt Pattie wanted to know why I was there every day changing dressings for her, surely she could do that much for herself.

I can't tell you how many different problems Mum has. She gets up and does the best she can every day even if that is just driving me crazy. She's facing this latest crisis with her usual courage and black humour. She's also frightened and if me just being around the house eases that a little then I'll be there every day. The troll sisters are jealous, not one of their grotty offspring would piss on them if they were on fire.

After all that, I told Mum how many of you had sent best wishes and support. She said it was wonderful that strangers could be better than family and she thanks all of you. She also asked if I wrote nice things about her and didn't put in the nutty bits. What could I do, I lied.

TWENTY-TWO

No news yet so I need a large dose of happy. The cat won't co-operate so I'll post the kid.


This is the year he became a father. They were told not to expect children so along came surprise number one. The wonder and joy of holding his daughter is something I will never forget. It was as though he was lit up inside with a thousand candles. He handed me the baby, saying, "Mum, Mum, look what I've done".
The wildlife gave way to childlife.