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.