ANNUAL DROOL FEST

Well you can't say I don't run an equal pervetunity blog. The model is Karolina Kurkova and she's modelling the year's Hearts On Fire Diamond fantasy bra. The bra is in the balconet style, weighs 800 carats and has more than 2000 perfectly cut diamonds. The centrepiece is a 10 carat Hearts On Fire diamond brooch. The whole thing is an absolute steal at $10 million. It took over 20,000 hours to cut and polish the diamonds and the bra took more than 300 man hours (man hours?) to fabricate. It's more expensive than the $6.5 million diamond dress created for the 2002 Oscars. I'm trying to figure how much it would cost to make it for me considering her bra size and mine. There could be a slight problem with keeping upright, the weight and gravity could have me hovering 2 inches above the footpath. No problem in the old days, whalebone corsets would let a woman load up with at least 2 kilos of bling. I miss the old days.

This was in my letter box when I got home, it's in the Christmas Catalogue for Trewarne's Posh Jewellery Which I Will Never Afford unless I get the ozlootto jackpot next Tuesday night. They send me the catalogue because I get my rings valued there for the insurance and they probably think I have money. I would have money if someone steals the rings, I leave the doors and windows open and lay a trail of breadcrumbs but all I get are possums stealing apples. The catalogue is glossy, the model is classy and skinny and doesn't need the baubles to look a million dollars. Her nails are short though, diamonds look lousy with short nails. Thank goodness I found something to pick on.

Nothing jumped out of the pages and grabbed me by the wallet. Just the ordinary routine diamond bits and bobs albeit big expensive bits and bobs. I have a ring that I drool over. I actually moved a naked bloke off the fridge door to put up it's photo. Stephano Cantauri designed it, that's the jeweller that made the necklace for Nicole Kidman to wear in 'Moulin Rouge'. This ring is so delicious that I wouldn't care if it was glass or diamonds. If I had the chance to get it on my finger (ozlootto - come to witchy) I would have it made up with every colour of Australian sapphires.

I'm going to ignore the two requests for bill payment that came in the same mail. I'm off to cruise the three jewellery websites at the back of the catalogue.

NIGHTMARE

I'm still having a few nightmares and some very vivid ordinary dreams which I remember but are too hard to articulate. I came across some information in a New Scientist article on Near Death Experience.

....."REM Intrusion" is a glitch in the brain's circuitry that, in times of extreme stress, may flip it into a mixed state of awareness where it is both in REM sleep and partially awake at the same time. "The concept that our brain is either 100 per cent awake or 100 per cent in REM sleep is absolutely erroneous," says Mark Mahowald, a neurologist at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Centre in Minneapolis. "We can have pieces of one state intruding into another, and that's when things get interesting."

But REM intrusion can affect anyone, and frequently does. Recent estimates suggest that up to 40 per cent of people have experienced "sleep paralysis", a form of REM intrusion in which you awaken with part of your brain still in REM sleep and your body paralysed. Often the result is a terrifying feeling of being unable to move, accompanied by visual or auditory hallucinations and pressure on the chest.........total paralysis is a hallmark of REM and REM Intrusion is usually a frightening experience.

REM is Rapid Eye Movement sleep where the activity of the brain's neurons is similar to that of waking hours. It is physiologically different from the other phases of sleep.

Extreme stress, had plenty of that lately. Total paralysis, had that in every nightmare but in every case I've been able to overcome it with great difficulty. No visual hallucinations but auditory ones, check. I've only had one with the pressure on the chest and that was really frightening but reading this article has put everything in its place. The paralysis nightmare has been accompanied by extreme fear as I try to move to dial the phone for help or get to the door to lock it. The auditory hallucinations involved someone circling the house, crashing through bushes and branches and the back door being repeatedly banged open. I had forgotten about the chest pressure until I read this and I had to go back quite a few months to where I had recorded that nightmare.

As soon as I wake up properly the fear goes, I'm just left with the memory, enough to write it down clearly. The reason for this clarity is the combination of the wakefulness and dreaming peculiar to REM Intrusion. I've had stress before without these nightmares so I'm blaming the cat for sleeping on the bed and giving me that extra nudge towards wakefulness which in turn starts the REM Intrusion. It doesn't help to wake up and find two big gold eyes peering into mine and the word "food" being beamed towards my brain.

My dreams are totally different. They're full of colour and detail. I'm also 6 inches taller, 40kgs lighter and 20 years younger and the men are so gorgeous they have to be hallucinations.

LOWERING THE TONE

I've been with Mum all day and I'm too tired to think let alone blog so I thought I'd lower the tone of the blogosphere by looking at naked guys. Him up top is an underwear model and he can model my underwear anytime. On the other hand a cute young thing, with a smile, who can cook and look good near a sink is not to be sneered at. I hate choices except at elections (spelt with an L, gutterminds). I'll think better in the morning after my liver processes the vodka my sister poured into me before she poured me in the taxi.

POSSUMS

These are Brushtail Possums in my tree before it fell down in the storm. They look cute but they bite because they're too stupid to know when a person is trying to help. I accidently locked one in the house a few months back and I woke up to rustlings in my curtains and there was a tiny one trapped. Do you think it would let me help, not a bit of it. It finally ran into the sewing room and shot to the top of the curtain rail so I opened the window, knocked the screen out and shut the door thinking it would find its way out. About 3 in the morning it fell in the middle of my work table, knocked everything on the floor and still couldn't find an open window right next to it. I finally got it through but it hooked its claws around the frame, so I'm trying to shut the window and unhook the claws but as I got one undone, the other would latch on. I felt like a cartoon character but I got it shut just enough and left the little twit plastered to the glass. I heard it fall into the bushes about 10 minutes later.


This is my dear old cat, Lord Greystoke eyeballing a baby who wasn't going to let a cat get in the way of apples and honey. He didn't chase it, he just watched it eat. I've only had one ringtail possum come to forage, mostly it's the brushtails. I just wish they wouldn't traipse over the phone line and crash on the roof. They make an horrendous sound when they fight, like a miniature werewolf, especially if they're just outside the bedroom window. I have to say, Janet, they are cuter looking than American possums.

MORE IRRITATION

If you've been reading this blog over the past year, you'll know that Mum discussed funeral arrangements and we wrote it all down. She could talk about it then but the time's come when it can't be mentioned. I can't put it off any longer so I'm making an appointment with the Funeral Directors to make everything official because I won't be in any condition to do it when the time comes. I've started to write my speech which is damned difficult but I promised her I would be the one to speak and with the help of enough tranquillizers I'll get through it.

By a coincidence, the Funeral Service is the same one the Blight used for his Mother. I'm sure you've read my report on the crappy job I thought he made of talking about her. The Funeral Directors thought differently and offered him the job of celebrant which he will take up next year. I found out this morning when he offered to speak for Mum. Eeewwwwwwwww.

My sister's reaction, eeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Mum's reaction, "I'll rise up out of the coffin and punch him!"

My reaction, apart from eeewwwwwwwwwww, was that he was going to be working within walking distance of MY HOME. That's too close for comfort.
Still it's given me a bit of a laugh because I happen to think he's a smarmy git who oozes insincerity with every breath but other people seem to like him.

It's been a bad couple of days and my sister and I have to cope with Mum on our own. She's having another lecture on palliative care today. Monday's lecture was on the pain control aspect, today's is on the emotional care of cancer patients. If Mum was having some sort of treatment, like chemo or radium then we'd have support but being conservative treatment then we're on our own except for the family doctor who is pretty good.

She is tired, very cold with a general weakness in the body. She's lost more weight and has various symptoms of tumour elsewhere in the body but we think there's another come back in the breast. She's in pain but manageable, she's in her own home, she can still shower and do her own little bit of washing in between sleeping a lot. We've discussed it and we can't justify putting her through more painful tests to find out where the cancer is when she can't be treated without shortening her life because anything now is only palliative. In other words, treatment will give her more time but not cure her. Deep down she knows this and turns away if we try to talk about it so we keep up the pretence that everything is fine.

I think this is worse than all the other times we have nursed her, not because it won't end in wellness but because I feel like a vulture circling the carcass. Our lives are in a holding pattern and we're waiting. Mentally it's draining and my heart goes out to any parents who are going through this with children.

I think I'll cheer myself up by telling my girlfriend about the new celebrant. She'll laugh, she's known him longer than I have. Yep, a good laugh is what I need.

APPLE TIME

This is my apple tree just before we had that 36 degree day in October and the north wind blew all the blossoms to kingdom come. However, at yesterday's count, there are 28 apples growing and more on the way. I threw out bread and honey for the possums last night and caught the glow of little eyes in the branches. The swines are already checking out the crop but they were so tiny. I didn't see mum possum anywhere, just the two little ones. So now there's a water dish under the tree for them. A big planter for the doves to swim in, another bowl to drink from and the bird bath out the front and another bowl by the gate. The birdbath has developed a leak so it's out with the cement again. The birds and the possums seem to be much thirstier this year so it looks like I'll be hauling water full time all summer. I just wish they'd make up their minds which water they want to wash in and what they want to drink from.

IT'S MEME TIME

This one's a killer and I've had it hanging around for some time. Not strictly a meme and I got it somewhere on the web. After the last post I looked at it again and I still can't do it.

My Father was.............

As a result, my life.............

In my future, I foresee...........

I MIGHT NOT REMEMBER EVERYTHING.......

I'm still trying to get dates straight but I didn't have straight hair and boy, was it red.

The first year of my forgetfulness has been revealed. My Mother had a lump removed from her breast and I found one in mine but both were benign. She then had a breast reduction and she was never happier at not having to drag two bags of concrete around on her chest. I don't know how Pamela Anderson does it. She got over that and broke her leg. It didn't slow her down though, she was seen to mow the lawn with a plastic bag over the plaster. That's probably what caused her heart attack.

The heart attack caused suicidal depression which she neglected to mention to anyone. She said she used to watch the window for that red hair to go past and she'd feel as though she could get through the day. She finally told her doctor and two weeks on anti-depressants, she was raring to go.

Apart from riding my bicycle to Mum's everyday, what was I doing. I was looking after my kid, my sister's kid, three dogs, four cats, an incompetant husband and dealing with my father who was terrified something else would happen to mum. I found it very difficult to be an adult with him, I was still his little girl while my sister was his little mate. He found it very hard to show his feelings because of his childhood so to thank me he had a gift delivered in the mail. It was from Franklin Mint and a copy of one of Faberge's eggs on a chain. Nothing he did before or after ever came close to that gesture of thanks.

As I said in the comments earlier, I didn't forget, for the next five years I think I was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. My sister said she was suffering from permanently being pissed. The Blight mostly just hid under a rock. So I think Dr. Watson, we have a solution to the mystery of the dreamings, nightmarings and panicpanicpanic, it's just the past coming back to bite me.

REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST

That sounds familiar, wonder where I saw it. I've been having dreams, a few nightmares and flashbacks into my past. The dreams I can handle, write them down, think about the meanings or not. The nightmares have been a little more frightening because it's unusual for me to have even a bad dream. They've been accompanied by an intense irrrational fear within the sleep state but which disappears when I wake up. A curiosity that intrigues me but doesn't bother me. The flashbacks are something else.

I don't remember very much of the second half of the first decade of my marriage. The second decade was a lot better thanks to a very good therapist who helped me along the road to realising who I was and how I came to be this person. The rest of the road I was supposed to travel alone and make my own discoveries but I'm easily sidetracked and working out a personality that included a backbone was hard work. I discovered an ability to create an object from an idea that was exclusively mine. Now I've sidetracked myself, back to not remembering.

I was watching the news about the 'Palace' in St. Kilda which is now a music venue but way back when, was a convention centre, can't be sure about that. I do know that I suddenly remembered going to a function there for the Blight's work. I wore a long black silk crepe dress with a diamente necklace that hung down to my waist with silver shoes and bag and my hair was just beginning to grow. The shoes should give me a reasonable date because they were my favourite pair, my only pair of evening shoes in the style of Madame Pompadour and the damn dog ate the bow off one. It couldn't have eaten both, no just the one. Sorry sidetracked again. It's just that this whole event became so crystal clear in one moment after living somewhere else in my mind for years. I was nervous and I was ill with the flu, not a cold but the big 'I' and I walked into a room full of cigarette smoke and almost passed out. I said my hello's and walked straight out and got a cab home. End of boring story.

This era of my life was also one filled with panic attacks, nausea and hyperventilating. My constant companion was a paper bag to re-breathe CO2 before I passed out. I was classy even in that, the bag was a green one from Harrods in London. That gives me another reference point, my girlfriend brought it home after her overseas trip. So why should this memory gallop up and bite me in the generous backside? I've been having panic attacks again and it's taken a week or two to recognise them. No Harrods bag this time but two steepled hands across my nose and I'm right even if I'm in the middle of Westfield. A sit-down with a cup of coffee and it's business as usual. The difference between then and now is that I know what is happening to me and I know how to deal with it.

Now to get over the spider phobia, the cockroach phobia, the scales phobia, the fear of flying, fear of John Winston Howard living like Dracula, that is forever, then I might be on that road to mental wellbeing.

SPAM GOES TOO FAR

"Treacle pudding, fish and chips, fizzy drinks and liquorice, flowers, rivers, sand and sea, snowflakes and the stars are free. He's goin' everywhere, B.J. If you've got a problem chum, think how it could be. It's true I hire my body out for pay, hey hey. Every stop I make, I make a new friend. Sharing everything with fun, that's the way to be. There's a voice that keeps on calling me. Thunder, thunder, thundercats, Ho! Thundercats are on the move, Thundercats are loose. McKay and this is my best friend Bear. I take care of both of them, which ain't easy, 'cause when they met it was MURDER! La la la la la, la la la la la la la, la la la la la la la, la la la la la la la la la la la la la, so - Barnaby The Bear's my name, never call me Jack or James, I will sing my way to fame, Barnaby the Bear's my name. Ma"

That was one spam message I received today and I didn't click on the link that preceeded it.

The next two spam messages were by any standards, pure written pr0n. I believe my mouth fell open. I'm used to the offers to prolong my s*xual joy but these didn't offer that and they both had links to click but I wasn't walking through that door. I don't know where they came from but I wish I could send a rocket back.

I've also been getting spam with part of my outlook mail address which hasn't happened before.

The only places I leave that is the few blogs that require it. I'll have to remember to use the gmail one from now on.

Sorry Russian ladies but I can't help you and as for the polish refugee with money in some far away bank account, sorry to you too. I wish the Israeli stockbrocker would realise I don't have any money to spare. In fact I'd wish you'd all go to spam hell.

HOW TO CRUNCH AN ECOSYSTEM

Tristan Da Cunha was named for Portuguese sailor Tristao do Cunha who discovered the islands in 1506. The circular island is surrounded by 1000-2000 foot cliffs on a coastline of 21 miles. It's dominated by Queen Mary's Peak, an active volcano that last erupted in 1961. The group of islands making up the Tristan Da Cunha group lie midway between Cape Town, South Africa and Buenos Aires, Argentina in the South Atlantic Ocean. There are species here not found anywhere else in the world.

A message was received at Tristan on the 22nd May from the master of TG Mighty Deliverer which said that due to bad weather TG Mighty Deliverer was forced to release the platform rig PXXI at 35'48S 013'35W to avoid risk to the platform and his ocean-going Tug Boat.. The platform was released at sea unmanned with no onboard fuel, thus contamination free. The total length is 104.9m, breadth 103.63m and draft 13m.





The Platform was found at Tristan on the 7th June on the SE side of Tristan at Tripot Gulch.. The Rig was visited by Tristan Officials on the morning of Thursday, 08 June 2006. She was grounded approximately 300m from the shore. There did not appear to be any oil leaking, only a small diesel slick. It was grounded directly off the Trypot Rock Hopper penguin rookery but the penguins had already left the island.

The Tristan Da Cunha Government then announced that the oil rig that had been stranded on Trypot Reef to the south-east side of the Island wasn’t going anywhere. And there were fears that any pollution coming from the rig could cause Yellow Nosed Albatros deaths and other birdlife fatalities on the Island on the outlaying islands of Inaccessible and Nightingale

The Tug Zouros Hellas departed Tristan on Saturday the 29th July without being able to remove the rig.

In September the South African research ship SA Agulhas arrived with Marine Biologist/ Photographer Sue Scott from Scotland and Geoff Fridjhon from South Africa to do an Environmental Assessment. However due to bad weather conditions they were not able to do much surveying at the rig because of heavy swells breaking in the harbour and around the island. Since the tug departed the island the rig had tilted slightly to seaward.
Two dives took place on the 21 and 22nd September, the first dive was without underwater cameras as it was considered likely that they would be damaged, due to the heavy swell and poor visibility. Although the dive ended after only ten minutes, it was useful as considerable marine growth was seen on the legs of the rig.

The outcome was, there appeared to be more growing on the legs than originally thought, the legs were coated with large quantities of dead coral, barnacle and oyster shells, while the horizontal sections had less coral but more oyster and other bivalve shells, a few small hard corals, a few large mussels, large dark red anemones etc, some which at depth were alive, and are non-native to Tristan.

So the timetable was….30th April the rig was released, the crew had it in sight until 16th May. It was briefly sighted again on 30th May but lost until June 7th when islanders discovered it on the reef. The Salvage tug departed Tristan on 29th July without salvaging the rig. Environmental assessment dives took place at the end of September but as far as I can find out the rig is still grounded at Tristan da Cunha.

Since we have satellites that can pick up a fly on Saddam’s nose I can’t understand why this wasn’t picked up while drifting around the Southern Atlantic or why it wasn’t fitted with a GPS chip or why the towing tug wasn’t prepared for bad seas in an area that’s notorious for them. The bottom line is that Tristan da Cunha is now threatened by an invasion of foreign shellfish that puts the ecosystem of the islands at risk.

MY PARTY TIME

I have such an exciting life that it's taken me nearly five months to fill a 24 exposure film in my camera. This is my September party dress which doesn't show up as it should because I'm a lousy photographer which you all know by now. The dress is a dark, almost black, green velvet with a emerald sparkle paisley pattern. Princess Diana had a dark blue velvet with a star sparkle effect and she and I had the same problem. The little sparkles are sharp and rip the shreds off any exposed skin and in her dress she had a lot more exposure than I did. It took about a week to clear up both forearms so now I remember why it stays in the dress bag. It also sheds little green sparkles over anyone who ventures too near.

This is the box I covered for the birthday boy. It's six sided which is the Chinese Feng Shui shape for good luck. Yes, once again WWP (I'm going to trademark that) hasn't done it justice.

The brocade was burgundy with a gold thread pattern and to keep the Chinese theme I dangled a bead tassell from a button a la mandarin's hat. I used metallic electric pink beads to pick up the subtle colour underneath the gold patterns.

The inside was a deep purple shot with black shimmering fabric which doesn't show up well but take my word it looked fantastic. It was finished off with a tiny gold braid. I hate to blow my own trumpet here but I was really pleased at the way it all came together and the photos don't do it justice I tell you. I can't be good at everything.

NOTHING TO DO WITH IT

Nope, he's got nothing to do with this post whatsoever. He's purely there to be looked at and appreciated for his statue like beauty, aesthetic qualities and phwooor, wow, yum, drool.

We're still cleaning, it goes on forever. Who invented clean? My new toy is brilliant if a bit unwieldy. All the little bits that go on the end of the dustbuster work and my window sills are almost dead insect free. Not the Bogong moths though. They have to be picked up with a front end loader. Is it just me, or are they earlier than usual and bigger than ever? A B52 doesn't have a wing span that big. I just washed the curtains and the bodies are piling up in the folds as I type. The cat loves them. The joy of being woken up by paws crushing my face as he tries to climb the bed head to catch them in the moonlight.

I'm overlooking the US elections because the coalition of the dills is still in place.

The Federal Government has finally twigged that if you give mothers a baby bonus of $4100 then they're going to spend it. So to stop these ruthless consumers, the bonus will be paid in 13 instalments, but only to mothers under 18. These teenage mothers are supposed to have blown the money on plasma TVs, overseas trips and partying. In this article there's no mention of what they did with the baby while watching the tv, overseas tripping and partying. Mal Brough said they'll maintain the lump-sum payment for adults because most dealt with the payments responsibly. Wrong, since when did turning 19 suddenly make an irresponsible 18 year old gain maturity. Give it to all in a lump sum or instalments.

I've given up my shopping day posts. I hate Safeway and Coles. Coles not so much because they at least have a cafe for a coffee and cake, Safeway wouldn't care if I dropped to the ground in exhaustion. I hate the top shelf in any supermarket because half of what I buy is up there, way at the back, way way at the back. Don't they have minions to re-stock shelves? My one ray of sunshine was finding the Menindee grapes are in. I wasn't greedy, just a small bunch and was I glad it was small. When did grapes sell for $14.95 a kilogram? I could have bought 4 bottles of cheap booze for that. I couldn't put them back, I'd handled them which made me think that maybe someone else had so they've been washed several times. On my list of all time greatest inventions, individual steam fresh vegetable bags. No more dead and dying vegetables in my crummy fridge and I don't have to peel anything except the top off the bag.

BEHIND IN THE READING

It's not too bad, New Scientist for 21st October so I'm just a little behind with the news.

Reading about Iraq's body count from The Lancet.
"......there have been between 400,000 and 950,000 "excess" deaths in Iraq since the start of the US-led invasion in 2003....."
The excess deaths were from gunshots or car bombs.
"Excess" deaths, I'm still trying to get my mind around that description.

In 2004, a federal court in the US ordered anthrax vaccination to be voluntary after soldiers complained of serious side effects. In 2006 the military is to resume mandatory vaccinations because it says they're safe. Would you buy a used tank from this mob. Oh damn we did, didn't we.

There has been a global analysis of malnutrition by the International Food Policy Research Institute and this caught my attention.
......."hotspots" of hunger in south-east Asia, despite huge progress overall in the region thanks to the transformation of agriculture during the "green revolution" of the 1970s. These include parts of India, where women and children often go hungry because men traditionally get to eat their fill first........

WOMBLING

I call this wombling because I'm rambling over common ground full of potholes, covered in brambles and tracks that might lead to somewhere or nowhere.

I have a brain, almost new, rarely used so it's not in a good enough condition to understand a lot of the issues I've been coming across in the blogs I've been reading lately.

I don't understand anti-semitism when it's applied to Israel, why isn't it just anti-Israel the way it is anti-American? The Arabs countries are run along their religious lines so why aren't they anti-Islamist but no, they're referred to as anti-Iraq, anti-Iran etc. Anti-semitism, when used seems to apply to every Jewish person from the North to South Pole. Countries are fair game to criticise, but to criticise every person of that country doesn't make much sense to me. I'm anti- Burma because I don't like the military monsters that are slowly destroying that beautiful country but I'm not anti-Burmese. I'm anti-American policies but I know all Americans are not fundamentalist, gun-toting war-mongering greedy capitalists. It seems I've entered a part of my commonground that is a bramble patch.

It's the same with feminism and feminists. I would have regarded myself as a lightweight feminist only because I'm not out there on the barricades beating off the misogynists with a cricket bat. That was until I started reading feminist blogs. Reading, but in a lot of cases not comprehending the meaning behind the letters, words, sentences and paragraphs. The women are brilliant with their arguements but I'm missing the full impact because the arguements are too clever for anyone of ordinary education. Lately I've read some excellent posts on women and pornography and women and prostitution but it's taken quite a few reads and in some cases I've printed out the posts to go through them word by word. I've seen how women will get behind each other in issues like abortion or IVF and I don't have to be a radical feminist to see how this benefits women but I don't have to fight every fight or take up every cause, it's my choice if I want to disagree.

I still don't see how loving high heeled shoes and make-up makes one a bad feminist. I see it, again, as a personal choice. I hate having to wear granny shoes but I also hate falling over so I've no option. I don't wear underwear at home but I do going out, once again it's because I might fall over or trip over my assets if they hang down too far. I love make-up, perfume, fashion (make that good fashion) and hair dye. A man or men haven't influenced me in those choices and I certainly don't diet for men, hell, half the time I can't get the willpower to diet for me. So am I a good feminist or a bad one, bramble patch again.

Homophobia is another thing I don't get. My definition of a homophobe is a bloke who thinks he's so ugly that he's frightened not even another bloke would hit on him so he strikes first. Gays are men, lesbians are women, men and women are human beings. Human beings deserve to find what happiness they can, in any way they can, with whomever they choose. Why is it so threatening to see two people, in love, commit to a life partnership, legally. Be it a civil union or a religious ceremony and religious because, guess what, there are gays who actually believe in God. And until that God comes down from the sky throwing thunderbolts and screaming "Kill all the homos!" then I'm going to believe he meant them to be here and to have the same respect everyone else does. If anyone dares to comment that if we let the gays marry then people will want to marry their dogs and cats then I'll break my rule about deleting comments. It's a ridiculous arguement and it's been destroyed by better bloggers than me. I see a faint track through this bramble patch.

I'm still stumbling over the potholes of politics. Philosophy is a bramble patch I'll never get into or out of. Literature, well I'm one who enjoyed the DaVince Code, but it's a oncer read. Don't like Patrick White, love Jane Austen and Harry Potter is my comfort read when I'm down. The Internet is a wonderful tool of education but it can also function as a pit of inadequacy into which I fall too often.

TO SARAH

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDDAUGHTER

QUICK QUIZ

I have been cleaning at the witch's cauldron.

It's a long drawn out process because I will get sidetracked by everything under the sun except the cleaning.

Now that I've finally had the dripping tap fixed in the bathroom and no longer need a jug, basin and watering can in there to catch the water, I cleaned up. Usually I wait until the silverfish start dying in the accumulated powder.

Tidied up the bathroom shelves, lined up all the bottles in a nice straight line and reminded myself to watch "Sleeping with the Enemy" again.

The shelves also brought to mind a quiz I saw ages ago. What is the worst snooping a person can do? Look at someone's bathroom cabinet or look in their fridge?

Cabinet's not bad, check fridge. Okay, any visitors can amble through my lotions, potions and face powder but no-one is allowed near the festering swamp that masquerades as my fridge.

It's not entirely my fault. Someone I was married to broke the plastic drainage thingies by jamming a week's beer supply up against them. The drainage thingies used to dribble down the big drainage tube to the tray underneath the fridge but now it just falls to the bottom inside. I had enough water in there to stave off the drought.

Check freezer, enough ice to sink the Titanic.

Check seals to ensure a tight fit for maximum performance. The seals must be those ragged broken bits around the door that are a pain to clean. Someone I was married to had pulled the bottom one almost completely off then sneakily repaired it with packaging tape.

I can't clean it yet. I remembered why I had those long barbecue tongs when I don't barbecue anymore and why they were rusty which is why I threw them out. Buy new ones next week but in the meantime move the champagne to a higher shelf just to be safe.

The champagne is to celebrate the 5th anniversary of my divorce from someone I was married to which is today but I think I'll get ratfaced on Cup Day. This will continue a long tradition, set by him I was married to, of never seeing out the first Tuesday of November in anything resembling a conscious state.

THE MIND'S A FUNNY THING

I have just spent two days with my Mum. I don't know about her mind but mine is turning to mush. I'm finishing her sentences and finding words for her when she says, "Oh you know".
I watched her take one and a half hours to write out her shopping order and it was hard to sit back and not take over. She wrote everything down then checked the pantry, wrote some more on a little piece of paper and then copied it out again but not on one large piece of paper but two more pieces of paper exactly the same size as the first. Even with that she couldn't ring the order through without losing her place and ordering some things twice, until I gave her a pen to cross out each item.

I'm beginning to feel like a mind reader although it wasn't hard to figure out what she meant when she wanted to know the name of the brown shoe polish you put on toast. Round things with the flag on them meant English muffins. Soup was confusing because she didn't want the large tin nor the small tin but the in between tin which is soup for one. I didn't have much luck explaining that you couldn't get anything smaller than soup for one.

The Brick Outhouse has finally grasped the fact that he has to think about what she's saying and while she isn't lying, if she can't remember then she'll make up whatever sounds best. Yesterday he went looking for his lunch which he'd left in the fridge. I'd put the groceries away and I hadn't seen any vegetable patties so he asks Mum. Mystery solved, she'd eaten them but she said that because that's what he asked. When he found them in the bin, the story changed and yes, she had thrown them out because they were soggy. It's hard not to put thoughts in her mind which she then trots out as truth half an hour later.

It's not Alzheimer's, it's more like a short circuit. She'll come out with half a sentence because she's been thinking of the first half in her mind but doesn't realize she hasn't spoken it. Changing subjects in mid-stream is another problem but I'm getting quicker with that. With other things she still functions okay. She now has full control of the DVD/Video player after a few hiccups. She can still talk about politics and how she's going to vote. No trouble with showering, washing clothes, dishes or cooking. There's just this little cog slipping out of sync between thought and mouth.

When I come home, I can't think for myself. I've been sitting down and picking up needlework or some other piece of craft, just for an hour or so until the brain settles down and the blood pressure. Now I understand why basket weaving used to be given to long-term patients in hospitals. Doing work with the hands and watching what you're doing seems to use one part of the mind while the other part runs around patching up the holes. Even blogging doesn't play the right part, the last post shows that because I have no idea how I ended up with three different fonts.

The next crunch to come is allowing her to have some Christmas lights but not the full house set. That involves about 6 powerboards and numerous timers and she won't remember what she's doing and we are a bit worried about her burning the house down. It's not like we haven't worried about that in other years but now it will be worse. My sister says I'm thinking too far ahead but it's already the 3rd of November and she's drawing up plans including me doing all the work. That's not going to happen, I've resisted for the last four years and I'm still digging in the toes, no lights, no dolls, no Christmas window. I know what the trade-off will be, I'll be spending Christmas Day with her with no escape clause. That's not mean because I would rather remember last Christmas Day as the best one we'd had for ages.

RED ROVERS

The image above is the most detailed sent to Earth by NASA's Spirit rover which has just marked it's 1000th day on Mars (that's Martian day).
It took a total of 1449 individual images which is 500 megabytes of raw data to make up what is now called the McMurdo Panorama.
The little rover took the images over a month while waiting for the Martian winter to pass and the sun to come back to strength to power up the solar panels.
The image shows the view of a part of the Columbia Hills region and the tracks it made can be seen winding off to the left. Dark volcanic rocks litter the area.
In about a month the rover will start to drive to a formation called Home Plate which scientists are hoping will be the remains of an explosive volcanic eruption.

Meanwhile on the other side of the planet, Spirit's twin, Opportunity has reached the 800 metre wide Victoria Crater (image left corner). This crater is wider and deeper, at least 60 metres, than any studied on Mars and should give scientists a look at the much older rock layers at the bottom. The Eagle Crater gave geologists 0.5 metres of layered rock and Endurance Crater gave 7 metres of layers.

Opportunity beamed back the first colour images while overhead the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped pictures of the crater and the rover from an altitude of 275 kilometres. It has taken the little rover 21 months to cross the Martian plains to reach this crater. Scientists want Opportunity to descend into the crater so it will travel around the rim to look for a suitable way down. The full panoramic image is now being radioed back to Earth but that will be interrrupted as we orbit behind the sun.

The rovers have already run 10 times more than their expected mission time. Scientists thought the Martian dust would cover up the solar panels but now one theory is that the Martian winds have blown this away. The rovers are showing signs of wear with Opportunity having one of its four steering mechanisms jammed and a weakened instrument arm joint.

Call me an old romantic but I like to think the Martians are sneaking out at night to tighten up the rubber bands and give them a quick push start in the morning. And what is with the lame names, 'Duck Bay', 'Cape Verde' or 'Cabo Frio'. Doesn't anyone at mission control read Edgar Rice Burroughs, Arthur C. Clarke or Asimov? Anyhow the images are brilliant.

GOOD NIGHT'S HUNTING

Well, that's me dressed for tomorrow night. Met you under the flaming pumpkin, Your Lordship, you be trick, I'm the treat.

Andrew, I think you're right, I'm just a drag queen at heart.

SPRING RACES

I am here to share my racing tips with you non racing types.

Don't back horses named after yourself or friends.

Red Dazzler came tenth in the Cox Plate with a starting price of $26.

Sedgewick did better by coming eighth in the Mornmoot Stud Stakes with a starting price of $71.

Sis says I couldn't pick my nose on a dark night under a klieg light let alone a winner.

Thank the Horse Goddess she can and did.

CLEANING HOUSE

Shannon Lush and Jennifer Fleming have a new book, Speedcleaning which is their follow up to Spotless neither of which is on my 'absolutely must read' list.

They have a theory that if you spend 15 minutes speed-cleaning one room of the house each weekday and four rooms on Saturday, you'll have conquered the dirt demon.

Is there a catch? Of course there's a catch because speed cleaning comes on top of the usual daily cleaning jobs. I don't do daily, I do twice monthly or yearly or more recently, not at all.

Miss Lush even includes handy hints and practical advice for men. Men clean!!!!

She shared a few of her tips today..........

Assemble a clean kit, brooms, buckets and dusters. (brooms, plural, only when I'm flying and need a spare)

Declutter the room and empty bin. Are you mad, woman! Declutter and I'd never find anything.

Dust ceiling and light fittings. Light fittings, that's why God invented down lights and anyone looking at my ceilings is likely to fall over the clutter.

Dust walls and tops of cupboards/bookshelves/wardrobes. I will be not be involved in the genocide of millions of dust fairies.

Dust paintings, hangings and other wall features. The spiders aren't keen on being flicked with a rag and one of life's truisms is that if you rub too hard on a wall, you'll leave a clean spot which will then stick out like dog's balls. I suppose she gives tips on dusting dog's balls too.

Clean light switches, door jambs and window sills. One can avoid dirty light switches by using one's elbow and the door jambs have been clean since the boys stopped using them as gymnastic equipment. The window sills are different, that's where the blowflies go to die and I don't do graveyards.

Clean furniture. Only if you come and move the cat, the books I'm reading and last night's dishes.

Clean floors. I can't do that, there's a Uni student doing a PhD on the flora and fauna of my kitchen tiles. In the bathroom, I followed my mummy's advice, get white tiles, you'll never see the powder. Forget the carpet, there's a cat on it.

Do refills, arrange fresh flowers, add fragrance and other items such as doillies. Hahahahahaha!
Artificial leaves with a coating of dust glitter like hoarfrost when you turn fairy lights on them and do you know how much REAL flowers cost and then they die. I'll go with the fragrance, nothing like the scent of illicit substances in the morning. I'm good for doillies, they make pretty patterns in the dust.

Empty the clutter bucket and put away clean kit. More work after the work. My vaccum cleaner hasn't seen it's cupboard since last Easter, it's a vagabond, laying it's little feet where I fall in exhaustion.

You know what kills me, the tarts are making a fortune.

THIS WEEK'S LESSONS

Governments will do everything to get re-elected.

The Federal Government is going to give schools $20,000 a year to employ chaplains to encourage core values instudents. $90 million over three years to develop the ethical and spiritual health of students. These chaplains don't necessarily have to have a religious background but would be required to provide religious aid and personal advice to students. They would assist full-time school counsellors.

I can think of better ways to spend 90 million dollars on school children, first off giving them a place to have a decent lunch which could be provided free. That might get the obesity wankers off the kids' backs. I assume that this would be 'Christian' core values so what happens to all the children of all the other faiths in this country.

Would they help gay teens who are being bullied and tormented? Money directed to the Pride and Prejudice program which tackles homophobic abuse and bullying in high schools or the Ally Program which trains people to help gay university students would help cut the suicide rate by making schools safer for teenagers of diverse sexualities.

According to the article I read, it's hoped that Howard's program might prevent another DVD-type incident of the Werribee kind. Well sorry, Howard but that kind of attack happens to a gay student every day of the week and you haven't cared about them but the religious nutters you associate with don't care either.

GINGERBREAD

Before we get to the Gingerbread recipe for Mindy, I watched a program on SBS last night about the town of Grafton and it's Jacaranda Festival. The Jacaranda Queen is chosen from the local girls and they were interviewed on what it was like to be the Queen for a year. There was a lot of old film footage as the Festival has been going since the early 1930s and the one thing I noticed most was the lack of coloured and asian faces. Nowhere and I looked very hard.

GINGERBREAD
(sorry, but it's so old it's teaspoons & cups)
4 ounces Butter
1 cup golden syrup
21/2 cups plain flour
3 teaspoons bicarb soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
pinch of salt
1 cup of hot water
1 egg
1/2 cup castor sugar
2 teaspoons ground ginger
pinch of ground cloves

Melt butter, combine with hot water, syrup and beaten egg.
Sift dry ingredients into basin, make well in centre, add liquid gradually.
Beat until mixture is smooth.
Pour into greased, grease-proof paper lined 9 inch slab tin.
Bake in moderately slow oven for 40 minutes.
When cold, top with lemon icing.

LEMON ICING
Sift 1 cup of soft icing sugar, (use pure icing suger and you'll need a jackhammer to slice it) add 1/2 teaspoon of butter and enough lemon juice to make a stiff paste.
Stand the bowl over hot water, beat icing until of spreading consistancy.

The cake and icing is perfect for freezing. If you cut it into slices, it only takes about ten minutes to thaw out. If you can't wait then you can be like Ron and me and eat it frozen.

RAINBOW PRIDE

This is Curtin University of Technology in Perth and that is the Rainbow flag flying. For the rest of this story and the launch of the Ally Program by the Vice Chancellor go to http://themuriels.blogspot.com.

Also read their posts on the campaigns of the Christian Democratic Party and the Salt Shakers to influence politicians about removing discrimination against same sex couples. These 'christians' readily admit that same sex couples are a very small minority in the community but they are still determined not to allow them the same equality as any other tax paying Australian citizen.

THINGS THAT MADE ME HAPPY TODAY

Scientists and Engineers for America have decided to campaign for particular candidates to bring notice to the fact that the Bush administration systematically ignore scientific evidence and analysis. Nearly 2500 people have signed up as members including two of Bill Clinton's former science advisers - John Gibbons and Neal Lane - and eight Nobel laureates.

Researchers have scanned the brains of seven obese people. The scans revealed that the same areas of a brain region called the hippocampus were activated in the obese people as in drug addicts craving their next fix. So another appetite-suppressing drug, MK-0557 has failed because it's not the stomach that wants to be filled, it's the brain. I could have told them that for a lot less money.

This is my favourite happy for today. In Reykjavik, they turned off the street lights and dimmed most households so that people in the city could star gaze. I love this idea for children and even if it's just for half an hour, think of how much they could learn. It would be easy to co-ordinate with a meteor shower, a satellite flyover or a particular arrangements of the planets. A much better idea than wasting money on fireworks that obscure the stars.

E. O. WILSON - AUTHOR

This is from an interview in New Scientist with E. O. Wilson, an author with a PhD. in entomology, whose books include, 'Sociobiology', Biophilia, The Ants, Consilience and the latest, The Creation.

Q. If the love of nature is innate, why is nature in such crisis and why is it so difficult to communicate the importance of conservation?

A. You've put your finger on it. There appears to be a hierarchy of drives in humans. The biggest concern is always survival and reproduction, and protection of clan and family.
For most of human history, humans have had to struggle against nature to survive.
Then with the Neolithic revolution we learned how to break nature by cultivating plants, clearing land and building surpluses of resources and developing technologies. But along the way, there has been this deep connection to having a natural environment, even if it's just to exploit it.

It took a few thousand years of adoring gardens, loving exploring, expanding into unspoilt environments and so on to bring us up short with the recognition that we've gone too far.
We broke nature and now we're smashing it and getting rid of humanity's biggest heritage.

A full version of this interview can be downloaded from the podcast website http://www.newscientist.com/podcast.

I think those three words, 'we broke nature' is exactly what is wrong with our world and now we have to fix it.

RACES = MONEY OR NOT

My sister the horse genius backed Tawqeet yesterday. Boo to everyone who wouldn't listen to her just because of her appalling lack of winners lately. Being slightly pissed on Friday night and looking like running out of VB, she conned the Brick Outhouse into going to the bottle shop. She was also out of change so he sprung for the cans, in return, she backed the horse for him. He went into shock after she rained $20 notes on his head. I asked her why she didn't get the trifecta and I'm shocked that my baby sister knows such rude gestures.

The SHS was full of fun articles and news today. The saviour of the world and scourge of terrorists, the glorious US of A has a new enemy to hunt down.....VEGEMITE!!! It has folate in it and the US only allows that in bread so now our beloved icon is a hunted fugitive. To think we allowed their obesity pills also known as Krispy Kremes freely into our country. That's this country's problem, we're generous to a fault.

Our Nic's hubbie is in rehab. The government is talking about getting serious about crystal meth, too bloody late as usual. But they do have our welfare in mind and are planning to ban a really dangerous substance.....hydrogen peroxide. Now that is what I call a very blonde moment. This chemical in large quantities can be used to make bombs and I will resist the urge to make the obvious joke here. I'm lucky, red hair dye only gives you cancer.

The Pope has said Catholics had to defend matrimony and the introduction of laws on other forms of unions which would only destabilise it. Just the usual gay wedding beat up but at least our government is doing something concrete to protect marriage, they're getting the blondes off the street. Cop that Benny!

Bag snatchers are on a good thing with women's shoulder bags holding thousands of dollars worth of items that are easily converted to cash. Hahahahahaha. Take mine, please. Convert my rubbish to money, lord knows I haven't been able to do it. Just leave my lucky green frog hanging from my empty purse. Leave the purse as well I hate buying a new purse but you can take the book of stamps, they wouldn't give me flower stamps this time and I hate pink cars.

I have a new responsibility and I hope I can keep it up. I have to tell Mum what day it is when she rings in the morning. The first thing I do in the morning is think what day it is, not likely. The first thing I do is check for breathing, what day it is comes way down the track after the second cup of coffee, after what should be the second cup of coffee. I've been drinking complexion tea (you touch that Sedgwick and you're gone) which tastes like grass in hot water and I'm still waiting for the miracle. The other tea I have is calming tea which also tastes like grass in hot water. My sister says it works for her and how would she know, she's using $90 face cream. Perhaps it's the grass that's giving her the inside on the horses.

GREMLINS IN THE BLOG

I can't get the page to load. It says 7 items to go and then a big blackness. The only way in is to search for trifle then click the link to me and I'm in. Just because I won't go beta blogging. I can't use old blogger. What damage would I do with a new format?

Anyway I've been cleaning. My admiration goes out to women bloggers who clean, look after kids, work and blog.

My sewing room has a floor and now I can see it without 50 kilometres of cotton threads. There is a window and now I can see the garden where before I could only see sky over the work table.
I can get to the lace cupboard. I can open the wardrobe doors. I keep thinking I'm in someone else's house when I walk past the door. Last night I even turned the light on before I went to bed just to go "It's clean!".

I washed the curtain at the back door. I must put this on my list of things to pass down the generations. My mother watched me one day as I spent an hour putting the hooks back on this curtain and wanted to know why I bothered taking them off. Well they get snagged in the curtains, don't they! "Why don't you put the heading with the hooks in a pillowcase tied up with string and wash them that way?" Terrific idea and it works and why didn't she tell me this important information when she told me to hang them up wet so that as they dry the creases fall out?

In a mad fit which won't happen again too soon, I also washed the bedroom curtains. If Alice Springs is looking for its topsoil I have in it my washing machine. I had to wash them twice but such dazzling whiteness which shows up the dust in every corner. I did find the legendary lost graveyard of moths though and I have proof. Admiring the lovely brightness yesterday morning, there was another moth, hanging in the folds and dying, all over my shiny shiny lace. He'll have to stay there, I'm not climbing on the bed again unless the chandelier asks me nicely to clean it. Dodgy knees don't let one climb on the bed from the side. I have to climb on the blanket box, hoof it over the bedend and stagger to the window and wrangle umpteen metres of double lace curtain. No wonder I let it go a delicate shade of grey before I go through that.

In unrelated news, the cat is eating and eating and eating. The food line starts at 6 in the morning, I wake up at 8. One of us is going to be re-trained. I think it's me.

I've been home for three days while my sister has been watching Mum. I cannot tell you how shocked I was to see how bad she was today. The deterioration in her short term memory is just unbelievable. We've just about given up on getting the pills into her on time. As long as she gets the morphine and she's not in pain. From now on it's all downhill and it's a real bitch so pardon me if I don't give a rat's about the rest of the world until the day it's over.

A TRIFLE

This serves eight or me.

300g packet frozen raspberries

1/2 cup caster sugar

1/4 cup water

2x250g packets mini jam rolls

1/3 cup sweet sherry (me 1/2 bottle)

250 tub mascarpone

1/2 cup thickened cream

2 tablespoons icing sugar mixture

Extra frozen rasberries, to serve.

CHOCOLATE TOPPING

1/2 cup thickened cream

200g dark eating chocolate, finely chopped

Grease a 20cm springform pan. Lone base and side with baking paper. Combine raspberries, sugar and water in a pan. Stir over a low heat until sugar is dissolved. Bring to the boil. Remove from heat and set aside.

Using your hands, tear half the jam rolls into bite-sized pieces and place over the base of the prepared pan in an even layer. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of sherry over jam rolls in pan. Spoon over half the raspberry mixture to cover the jam rolls.

Whisk mascarpone, cream and icing sugar mixture in a medium bowl until just combined. Using a spatula, spread half the mixture over top of rolls. Repeat layering using remaining jam rolls, raspberry mixture and cream mixture.

Cover pan securely with two layers of cling wrap. Place base of another 20cm springform pan or a plate on top. Push down firmly. Top with a heavy weight and refrigerate overnight.

To make topping, bring cream to boil in a pan and pour over chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Stand for 2 minutes before gently stirring until melted.

To serve, remove side from pan and discard paper. Lift cake onto a serving plate. Spread warm chocolate topping over cake and decorate with extra raspberries. Refrigerate until set.

I can't vouch for this recipe. I haven't been game to make it but I can almost taste it, it's so delicious even to look at. Every time I look at it, I put on 2 kgs so somebody out there, make it and tell me what it's like. I think it would freeze but then I've been known to eat frozen cake so that wouldn't save me. Consider it my antidote to the hairy object in the last post.

CAUTION, SPIDER ALERT

If you think this is creepy, spare a thought for me trawling through images to get a good one. It's a zebra tarantula and it's obvious why it's called that. Usually spiders use minute claws and pads on their feet to crawl vertically and cling upside down. Their feet are called 'tarsi' (keep that trivia).
These little/large beauties produce sticky silk out of microscopic spigots on their feet. Apparently a lot of work has been done on spiders' feet but this has been missed so the question is......are the abdominal spinnerets remnants of ancient appendages or are they a recent adaptation to supplement the claws and pads? Scientists are trying to identify the genes involved in tarsal (feet, trivia) silk production to see and this will require detailed surveys of all spider species.

Now this is an opportunity for filling out Centrelink work forms. "Do you have any special skills?" "I specialize in the measurement of tarantula silk spinning spigots. I have several specimens with me, would you like me to demonstrate my skill?" "Not likely, dole granted, please leave the building."

JUST ANOTHER SUNDAY

Another Sunday of wanting to rip the paper to shreds. Brendan Nelson thinks it's a good idea to offer our young people a year in the Army to see if they like it. The Prime Rodent says he will never bring in conscription unless this country is attacked but he likes the idea of giving our children a taste of Army life for a year. They wouldn't have to stay beyond a year if they didn't like the life. These two could stand on a stack of their precious bibles and I wouldn't trust them to lie straight in bed.

Family groups are on the warpath again, accusing school teachers of celebrating homosexuality in the class room. The Education Department's anti-homophobic bullying policy is under attack by the usual suspects, Australian Family Association and the Australian Family Council. They state that the policy which respects and celebrates diversity will have the opposite effect and encourage bullying. Our old friend and foe, Bill Muehlenberg thinks a pro-homosexual agenda is trying to hijack the bullying programs to push a pro-homosexual policy on children.
According to the Department, "The most important thing teachers can do is create and continually model a school environment that respects and celebrates diversity" and I would hope prevent the suicide rate of gay kids rising any further. As it's election time in Victoria, the opposition spokesman Martin Dixon also put in his two cents worth and agreed with the Nutter families.

Perhaps I wasn't in the mood to laugh off the idiocy this morning. Friday was not good. We discovered that Mum had slept most of the hot day on Thursday and unfortunately meant she hadn't taken any of her pills including the morphine. It's taken us two days to get the pain under control again but the pill situation is getting worse because of her short term memory being about 10 seconds long. My morning routine is to tell her what day it is so she knows which row on the doucette pack she should be using and then stay on the phone while she takes the pills.

Yesterday, I had my sister on the mobile and Mum on the landline at eight in the morning. South Eastern Water had been digging up the nature strip from 4 o'clock and the water was turned off. Mum was panicked about not having enough to drink until I reminded her I could buy bottled water. Sis was at work after a morning shower of one cup of water. I rang SE Water and spoke to a very pleasant girl who went to no end of trouble to find out what was going on and how long for the water to be back. She then said to ring if anything else was wrong and it would be taken care of immediately. The trouble was a burst pipe which seemed to be three miles underground by the look of the excavation. The whole incident was enough to throw Mum off balance again and she lost the pill plot completely.

I spent the day with her, she slept and I got to read the RagMags, Sis buys and passes to me. One of them had a feature of glamourous ladies from the 1920's to now. I can already wear a little black dress like Audrey Hepburn or more truthfully like three Audreys. The one thing I would really have loved to wear and could never, were the silk shirts and slacks of Kate Hepburn. No skinny jeans or midriff tops for her just a casual elegance. We do share one thing in common, hands in pockets. I love to walk around with my hands in my pockets and copped a few detentions for the misuse of blazer pockets. More like misuse of Prefect power.

One thing about all of these fashion photos really bugs me. Short short dresses and high high heels. The 1960's short doll dresses and low heels were a match but sophisticated strappy Manolos and itty dresses look mismatched. I'll just bypass comment on hiphop artistes. One photo I did love was of Elle at the airport looking like three miles of bad road. It made me so happy. Yes, I have a little bit of bitch just under my lady-like verneer. Sue me!

STILL ON THE CLEAN UP

World's worst photographer is at it again. In the clean up of the bedroom, I decided that it was time to move the winter gear to the other end of the wardrobe and replace it with the summery tents I wear. They hang on these. I 'invented' them twenty years ago when I had so many wire coathangers from the Blight's coats that I was sick of making trellis out of them to grow Jasmine on.

These have been doing service for at least fifteen years and I did tizzy them up a bit with new ribbons and pearls for the photo. The covering is felt, stitched with a needle lace stitch which goes the opposite direction to blanket stitch and gives a nobbly finish and the dresses don't slide off. Never one to take half measures, I put bias binding around the handle, finishing with satin ribbon. The oval decoration is felt, hand embroidered with roses and finished with large pearls.

I don't get wire hangers these days but I'm rather pleased at how long these have lasted. A lot longer than my clean ups do.

SRTM AFRICA

This prominent circular feature, known as the Richat Structure, in the Sahara desert of Mauritania is often noted by astronauts because it forms a conspicuous 50-kilometer-wide (30-mile-wide) bull's-eye on the otherwise rather featureless expanse of the desert. Initially mistaken for a possible impact crater, it is now known to be an eroded circular anticline (structural dome) of layered sedimentary rocks.

This is what you find when you clean up the papers hanging around the bedroom. The press release date was June, 2004, two years and I hadn't clicked the link. The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission's data is being used to study earthquakes, volcanism and erosion patterns.
One application of the SRTM imagery along with elevation data is monitoring the disappearance of the Mount Kilimanjaro glaciers. For more information go to http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm .

SKY

After the rain, a wonderful double rainbow followed by a glorious sunset.

Both photographs taken in Albany, Missouri by Dan Bush and published at http://www.missouriskies.org. Thanks to Janet I'll be spending a lot of time here. The photographs are magnificent.

Civilizations come and go, philosophies and religion change but Nature remains.

UGH AND DAG

I was hoping that GoFugYourself would have this photo after seeing it in today's paper. See all the money in the world won't give you style. Katie is so mixed up she's put on her strapless cocktail dress and her sunglasses. The dress has a tulle petticoat as well. Vic Beckham looks frail under the weight of her non-surgical enhanced boobs (so she says and would she lie?). They both look like a pair of vampires in search of a good meal. The photo I saw of dag Katie had her boobs going in an opposite direction to her dress, doesn't look as bad here. Ugh Beckham is just ugh.

This was lovingly brought to you by a fat lady who's just had a decent meal and is now looking for a chocolate bar.

Brocken Spectres

It's a bit small but I think you should be able to see what I'm describing. The 3-4 rings of colour is called a glory which occurs directly opposite the sun at the antisolar point on a high ridge.

The figure inside the glory is the shadow of the photographer looking down and projected forward through the mist. All shadows converge towards the antisolar point where the glory shines.

The Brocken Spectre is named for the number of sightings on the Brocken, the highest peak of Germany's Harz Mountains.

The photograph above was taken in September 2004 by Jim Salge of the Mount Washington Observatory.

GRAVITY

The figure above shows a composite image from GRACE satellite data showing the gravity changes for the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake. (Image courtesy of Shin-Chan Han, Ohio State University.
If you want to know more go and read this

Update.....Finally, I hid a link and published and it worked. Thank you Davo, thank you Ron, thank you Janet, thank you linesmen, thank you ball boys. Now if I could remember how to convert a gif to a jpeg then I could do the post on Brocken Spectres which is really interesting but a photo is worth a thousand words.

WHEN PRON'S NOT QUITE RIGHT

I was browsing through TigTog's Hoyden About Town blog yesterday and followed the link to another blog, Pandagon. That post had me still thinking this morning and I went back to read it again but the site wouldn't load and my computer froze so go tohttp://viv.id.au/blog/ and read TigTog's post, Pro-sex, anti-misogyny: where's the non-vile porn?

The original post is about the increasing violence towards women depicted in porn videos and how it has escalated in recent times so follow TigTog's link to it.

I've only watched one porn movie in the last twenty years and that was as boring as watching John Howard lie so I'm not an expert. When I first connected to the Internet, I was accidentally directed to a porn site and to say I was gobsmacked is putting it mildly. I was working my way through an archaelogy webring hub and one of the sites had been hijacked to sell their rotten movies. The stills from the films were bad enough but the language describing what men were going to do to women was worse.

Follow the link and go to Pandagon and read with an open mind.

BOYCOTT

I hate having to give up something I really like but I'm making the supreme sacrifice because of this ad.

I love Mentos mints, peppermints, fruities but after watching the new ad campaign I'll never be able to pop another in my mouth.

Half naked guy, well they had my attention there, eats an icy mentos and grows nipples the size of tentacles.

These tentacles are very versatile and gross. If they were any more gross they'd have vote Liberal stuck on the tips.

They move.

They poke things.

They wave around.

Did I mention they move, and in different directions.

I am never eating another Mentos.

The company will lose a fortune.

LENNIES

There are several clouds stacked into this lenticular cloud over the Island of Hawaii. Air usually moves more horizontally than vertically but when wind comes off a mountain, strong vertical oscillations take place. The clouds form layers where the air is saturated with moisture. While the cloud looks as though it's stationary, the wind speed is extremely high. Glider pilots love these clouds. If the wind speed is higher than the glider's stall speed then the glider can head directly into the wind. This feels like being suspended in space although the instruments indicate the glider is still flying.

This lenticular cloud was not photoshopped. It was taken by Kay Ekwall and has been used all over the world, boldly going where no cloud has gone before. A case of being in the right spot at the right time.

BLOG BIRTHDAY OR NEW YEAR'S BLOG?

One year on line and I didn't think I'd last a month.

Everybody has a blog birthday so I thought I'd have a New Year Blog with new resolutions.

No more posting of naked sex objects. He doesn't count, he's wearing a top, almost.

No derogatory remarks about the four-eyed fat git of an ex and his thin-lipped pudgy faced beady-eyed blonde.

Learn how to hide links which I've been trying to do for the last twelve months. Thank you to all the lovely commenters who've sent instructions. I've kept them all and read them every day. I anticipate understanding them by the year 2010.

Stay away from politics, the mud is too hard to remove.

Stop going to myspace and laughing at the dweebs.

Stop going to Mugglenet and playing Harry Potter games and telling myself it's intellectually stimulating, not time wasting.

Find a way to destroy spammers.

Be kind, sweet, good and loving to my fellow bloggers, stuff the rest of the universe.

LOUSY LIBERALS

I was reading an article last week which had this quote from the novelist Fay Weldon. She
once said, before you have children you can believe you are a nice person; after you have children you understand how wars start.

In this neighbourhood, that translated to the war between mothers of children.
You’ve all come across them, the ones whose little angels never tell lies, who can do everything better than anybody else’s child. We had wars in this street that would put the Taliban on the defensive, guerilla campaigns to outrival the Viet Cong and vendettas between mothers where no quarter was given or asked for. After playing peacemaker for years, I finally snapped and bodily threw a neighbour out of my house. It was years before we spoke again which was fine by me, I’d had enough of explaining to the boys that it didn’t matter how many lies her brat told, he’d get his eventually but he never did.

Apart from Weldon’s comment, an election promise from the Liberal party prompted those memories today. They are going to introduce a $2.3 million head lice program if they are elected next month. A Liberal government would pay for two head lice treatments a year for primary students.
Head lice lay eggs on the hair strands (nits) and they feed on human scalps. According to the Liberal spokesman, they spread by crawling between heads.

Believe me, they don’t crawl, they leap tall buildings in a single bound. The boys only got them once and it was a nightmare of washing everything including teddy bears and hair in Quellada. I had very long hair at the time and I went through it every night for a week with a tiny nit comb. So I did the right thing and notified the school and told the local mothers. I’d have got a better reception If I’d have announced they had the plague. Out of six mothers, not one would have gone to the school or told other mothers to check. To say I was shocked is putting it mildly and I’d be prepared to say that not a lot has changed or we wouldn’t be still having lice as an election promise.

Don’t wash the kid’s hair in expensive dog shampoo either, it won’t kill the nits and the lice love clean hair. I don’t apologize, it was a stop gap measure worthy of a politician. At least I didn’t use the Blight’s suggestion, put fly spray in a plastic bag and pull it over their hair.

And if any of you got through that without the urge to scratch, congratulations, because I didn’t.

SCIENCE FRIDAY

The news from our lovely synchrotron is good.

Dr. Peter Kappen is working on a coffin of a 2500-year-old Egyptian princess to find out where the artists got green pigment for their paint. The red, yellow and blue paints came from natural ochres and minerals but the green is a mystery. This coffin lid is ideal because it has never been preserved with modern varnishes and the synchrotron will allow Dr. Kappen to work out the chemical composition of the paint. He does work in a German Synchrotron.

Dr. Marcus Kitchen, from Monash University, studies how fluid is cleared from the lungs of newborn rabbits. The process does not harm the rabbits and the images are to calculate how much air goes into the different regions of the lung and how long it takes to get there. This research could eventually lead to better ways to treat premature babies who have to be artificially ventilated because their lungs are not fully developed. Dr. Kitchen researches at a Japanese Synchrotron.

Dr. David Cohen goes to a US synchrotron where he is researching plants that thrive on toxic heavy metal such as lead, nickel and cadmium. These plants can store amounts of metals thousands of times greater than others. They're known as hyperaccumulators and could help clean up contaminated industrial sites. The synchrotron helps reveal how the plant stores the metal and in what chemical form.

Being able to work in Melbourne instead of travelling all over the world will mean less air fares (no business class) and jet lag and more experiment time. There is a huge waiting list at overseas synchrotrons and very little time to set up and finish experiments. Whatever the cost of the Australian Synchrotron, currently over 160 million dollars, it's worth every cent to scientists wanting to work here.

Speaking of Costello, I mean sharks, here is a little snippet from New Scientist. The grey nurse shark is heading for extinction and scientists are trying an artificial uterus for growing shark embryos. Why not leave them where they are? It seems the grey nurse shark starts pregnancy with up to 40 embryos in her two uteruses but the embryos have a taste for cannibalism (calling Naomi Robson) and tend to eat each other. The embryos will be flushed from their mother and raised in the tank although they haven't yet developed an artificial uterine fluid.

Something for the arachnophobes. There is a species of spider in eastern Ecuador that lives in nests that house up to several thousand individuals. It's rare for spiders to live in cooperative groups but this mob uses group tactics to hunt. They hang sticky silk threads from low-lying leaves and when an insect is trapped, a group of spiders drop down and wrap more threads around it. They paralyze the prey with venom and carry it back to the nest to share with others. They also take turns carrying the kill back to the nest if it's large. Just what the world needs, a think tank of spiders.

LIFE'S ALTERNATIVE

If you can't have cake, settle for crumpet.

LIFE LESSON NO 235.

Be careful what you wish for because you might get it.

I did and found it still wasn't enough.

A severe case of getting crumbs then knowing I wanted the whole cake.

Which I'm never going to get.

But it's spring and I'm alive and full of ............(fill in according to your own mood because mine's crap)

PARTY THINGS

WWP has loused it again but you can almost see my brilliance. Tiara above is the Queen Victoria. Pearls and crystals, worn with my black velvet and acres of lace.

This is the Czarina. Pale mauve pearls, amethyst crytals and irridescent purple bugle beads. The beads are so gorgeous that I was tempted to take it apart and re-use them but it's my favourite head piece so it has to stay in the collection.

This is Autumn Fantasy. Gold berries, hand made gold roses and frosted burgundy berries. Looks great on red hair and goes with burgundy velvet. The only dumb thing is the frosty bits tend to come off and linger in the hair for a week or two. The first time I wore it, I panicked a bit until I realized even nits didn't come in this size or roll around the scalp. I can't bring myself to break this one up either.

My mid-summer madness. It cost a fortune in silk gerberas to make myself look a mid-summer prat. It sits on my bedside lamp to remind me that I can go out to a party alone and have a good time even if I had to fight off the bees. It doesn't show up very well but that white bit in front is a diamente beetle, just a little finishing touch.

I've taken photos of Saturday's green sparkle velvet and its original green velvet and pearl headpiece but knowing my skills, the dress probably won't sparkle when everything else sparkles too much. I am toning things down a notch now that I'm in my dotage, I only wore a huge green beaded comb in the tresses and equally huge emerald and diamond earrings. Neither of which moved when I fell on my 'harse'.

INTERNATIONAL DAY

Next Friday is save the Koala day so don't get it mixed up with Sunday which is International Day for Older persons.

I'm an Older Person so send presents early, I don't have much time.

I've been a bit remiss in giving bouquets lately. Bouquets to taxi drivers because recently I've had some really ace ones. The sweetheart who was so lovely to the ancient cat I was transporting to the vet and the two I had on Saturday night. If taxi drivers want to make a heap of cash, cruise the Dandenongs on a Saturday night because there are never enough cabs at three in the morning. I apologise to the other guest at the party whose taxi I unashamedly stole. You were having such a good time on the dance floor I didn't want to interrupt you but I'm sure you got home eventually.

The party was great, as usual, except for the part where the fat lady fell over and I was sober at the time. My Cuz loves to lean on a shoulder but when that shoulder tried to lean on a wall that wasn't there, well down she goes. The bruises are technicolour but nothing broken except my dignity so I decided I might as well drink after that. Champagne cocktails no less. But I didn't try the new drink in a can, a combination of schnapps and irish cream. Champagne is much better for pain, I didn't feel any until today.

I had compliments on my dress which sparkled and my hair which had sparkles sprayed in it. When I did that the cat was sitting on the bed and he sparkled and we are both still sparkling. If I remember from last time it takes a week to unsparkle. I should unbruise and unsparkle about the same time.

Now don't forget Sunday. Something male, young and wearing spiffy underwear should do. Don't forget the green eyes. Not hairy either. Not too many muscles, I like softness. Just because I'm old doesn't mean I can't be choosy. Don't forget the cologne, expensive cologne.


PS. Hugs and kisses to the sweet creature who thought my red hair was natural. Aren't the young delicious?

HELLO LITTLE BLOG, DID YOU MISS ME?

I have just spent 6 straight days with my Mother. I have PTSD and a brain like mush. It could be several days before I can think straight or maybe the party I'm going to tomorrow night could fix that with booze and drugs and wild sex. Damn that won't work, I can't drink, never got the hang of smoking pot and I've forgotten what wild sex is.

There were several close calls with matricide. After ironing for five hours, it's not irrational to want to put the pillowcases in the linen cupboard before she wants them on the bed. After all she hasn't seen these in twelve months. That's how many pillow cases she has, twelve months and she hasn't needed the ones I've just ironed. Twenty-five of them and seven tri-pillows. I can't throw rocks, I have nearly as many. It's one of the first things she taught me to sew. My side of the bed had lovely lace and linen, his side had cheap crap. Do blokes do anything in bed other than drool, dribble and snore?

Where was I? The ironing board goes up and down which makes it easy for me to sit and iron except the lock decided to give way but I was wearing my 'granny basher' boots and no bones were broken but a lot of blasphemy rules were. Because we now had so many nicely ironed pillow cases to put away, a complete re-arrangement of the linen cupboard had to follow. In the process I found another two huge bags of papers, bills and Christmas cards. I swear the stuff is breeding.

I only kept bank records and bills from one year back. My Mother is the only person I know who ties up her old bills and envelopes in ribbon which she then puts in a plastic bag which then goes into another bigger bag. There must be a name for a phobia for putting things in things in things. The bank records were illuminating. National Bank of Australia has a lot to answer for in relation to the debt this woman is in. Letter after letter from NAB Mastercard offering a pre-approved loan upgrade. The last one I opened earlier this year had the amount going from $8000 to $13000 and they have to know she's a pensioner. Their charges are a disgrace as well and I'm sure they make the statements as hard as possible to read so no-one can understand them.

The Brick Outhouse was not amused at me finding the curls from his first haircut. He was more not amused when I offered to frame them. The only thing I didn't find was the lifetime guarantee for the shower rose which fell out of its fitting on Monday morning. Murphy's Law.

I dare not weigh myself. Stress eating for six days is bound to do nasty things. I really am going to have to drink tomorrow night, just enough to relax, not enough to have a hangover on Sunday. Hard rubbish collection is on Monday and I have to drag it all out. Murphy's Law.

TWILIGHT ZONE

Yes, I am having a twilight zone evening. Blogger hates me and I'm still trying to get into the comments on the last post. I tried to send Davo an email, 6 times and I'm glad it finally got through. Pages are coming up, 'unable to find server' then appears after I hit the refresh button. Blogger comments everywhere are slow.

I won't be around a lot for the next five days, hopefully maybe only four. I'm doing the pill run for Mum again. I knew she was in trouble this morning when I showed her the new toaster and she said it was a lovely wall oven, would it fit in the kitchen. So grab the test strips with one hand and the script for anti-biotics with the other and off to fairy land for another week.

This is so upsetting for her because she knows that what she's doing isn't right but she can't process information. She couldn't remember this afternoon what Panadol was or what day it was. She wanted to know why she couldn't come to stay with me while she's like this. Apart from the fact that I'd bury her under the lemon tree after two hours, she has to stay in familiar surroundings until her mind clears. There's a real danger of her falling if she becomes too disorientated.

This is Saturday and the doctor came to see her on Wednesday and she was in a lot of pain, a little confused because of that but otherwise okay. That's how fast these UTI's move around the body. It doesn't help that she has two medication regimes to follow, even sis has trouble sorting them out, so we've put a big poster on the bedroom door with the times for pain relief and all the others come in a bubble pack. That's fine unless you forget how to get the pills out of the bubble pack.

It's really hard and any-one who does this caring long term is a better man than I am Gunga Din.

LOSS

Yesterday I read a touching post at Mindless Munkey blogspot about the loss of his mother. I left a comment and today I went back and deleted it.

I couldn't leave it there because it wasn't right. A boy loses his mother only once. A mother loses a little of her boy with every extra step he takes away from her. A smart mother doesn't show it, she hides it. The first time he doesn't want a kiss because everyone's looking. When he'd rather play football than go shopping. His first girlfriend or boyfriend as the case may be.

When a boy, loses his mother it's the first loss for him. He will never be the same boy again. He now has to grow up on his own terms.

Mothers always have a spot deep in their subconscious where the dread thoughts are kept. We're never prepared for death or illness but in reality we are, because we're mothers. It's hidden in the fine print in the job description. It's not in the job description for a son, that only activates with the first cry of the firstborn.

While my heart goes out to Munkey, I can truly say, "I don't know how you feel".

Comment deleted.

ANOTHER CLOUD

I couldn't resist another cloud over Mt. Shasta. This was taken by Jane English in 2001. It's called Abraham's Tree and is another phenomenon that New Agers have taken as a sign that the mountain has a supernatural power. The cloud is composed of cirrus clouds fanning out in plumes from a central point. In weather lore, if there appears to be a lake at the base of the fan then there is a storm brewing.