VERY TINY STEPS

133.1 last week and a not so whopping 132.8 this week.

Good news, I haven't put any back.

Bad news, at 3 grams loss a week, I'm going to have to live a long time to get thin.

Bad, bad news, if you're going to look at the pretty clouds, don't walk at the same time because you won't be upright for long.

CREEPS

I almost put a boot through the TV tonight but I wasn't wearing anything but slippers so I made do with lots and lots of four letter words. Stateline is always good and tonight it showed up the stupidity of laws regarding surrogacy and what goes on a birth certificate. It involved not only a heterosexual married couple but two men in a partnership with a baby and how it affected them. I might say they looked great with little Ethan too.

The thing that got right up my nose was the goodly compassionate christian (deliberate small 'c' there) who doesn't want gays or lesbians to be able to adopt or use surrogacy to have children. He thinks children should only have a mother and a father otherwise they'll get confused. (?) By this time the language on my end was getting more than a little salty but here comes the clincher. This nerk when asked about babies like Ethan thought that ideally he shouldn't have been born. Aaaarghh! That beautiful little child with his two fathers, shouldn't have been born!!

I had no words left to throw at him after that but I badly wanted a large boot.

So we come to Senator Steve. Another compassionate christian lad is our Senator Fielding. I started to write to him in 2005 because he refused to reply to Kelly and Samantha Pilgrim-Bryne, them being lesbians so not worthy of his attention. Well the compassionate one refused to answer any of my letters on marriage equality and me being straight and a voter. But he sends me emails which thrills me no end.

In the latest, he is worried that families are missing out on public holidays, that the alcohol toll is rising, that grocery prices are sky-rocketing and those extreme Greens are soft on drugs. But what made my heart go pitty-pat was the fact that he now has a VIDEOBLOG. I get to watch him here http://www.stevefielding.com.au/html/videonews.html.

Well I would get to watch him but I have to go and buy some boots first or maybe I'll just email and tell him Kel and Sam are pregnant. They'll be a family, it'll make him all warm and fuzzy.

Update: the transcript for Stateline is http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/vic/content/2006/s1908524.htm

SERVING WENCH

I try not to eat at the same place at Westfield on shopping day, really I try not to eat the same cake on shopping day. This place I may not go back to unless I need the comfy cushions on the seat. The coffee was so-so (long black, no sugar) and the cheesecake with raspberries not a patch on the last one which had berries in the cheesecake as well as on top. The little serving wench who wouldn't have been out of place in a 17th century tavern, served me the cake on a plate with the fork sticking straight up in the middle of it. It looked as if it had run up the white flag and surrendered to the fat lady. It's not the first time it's happened at this cafe and if they can't put the fork beside the cake why don't they get bigger plates so clumsies like me don't shoot it across the table.

A little old lady (I tell you I'm a magnet for them) wanted to know where I'd bought my dress. "Very pretty", she said and wasn't I clever to make it myself. So she patted me on the shoulder and wandered off while I, in this age of suspicion, checked my bag for my purse. Fagin would be lucky to find, let alone pinch, anything from the bottom of my bag. I could lose a small country in there.

So I come home and check the mile long receipt from the robber barons to find the cat food equals two thirds of the bill, the other third is mine. Okay so I would have trouble living on Whiskas but he's getting it disguised with the expensive stuff. I remembered the wild bird seed which should please the mob at the back door. I am over-run with freeloaders.

I did not buy any chocolate, any biscuits, any coca-cola, anything that would make me happy but fat. I am so good.

1944

This is my mother in 1944. She'd just turned 14 and was working at Caulfield Hospital as a wardsmaid until she was old enough to start training as a nurse. She also worked at Heidelburg and watched 'Weary' Dunlop operate. She said his eyes were the kindest eyes she had ever seen. A year after this she met my father who was slowly dying from tuberculosis. A lot of the men she looked after didn't survive TB, especially the ones from the POW camps. She can still look at the photographs and tell you the names of the patients. Sometimes my father is the only one in the photo who survived. He made it because of her. They married in 1948 and he died in 1994.

AT LONG LAST

Media release: Rights Lobby applauds State Government's commitment to registering relationships

The Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby (VGLRL) has commended the State Government on its proposal to introduce a relationships register to Victoria. The initiative will allow couples, irrespective of gender, to register their relationships and have formal recognition at law.

"This is a significant moment for all Victorian couples who are mutually committed to sharing their lives together," said Lobby male co-convenor Gerard Brody. "We congratulate the State Government on this proposal". "The relationship register will build on the important legislative reform undertaken by the State Government in 2001, with the passing of the 'Relationships Acts'," said Mr Brody. "That law reform provided same-sex couples the same theoretical rights as mixed sex (de facto) couples under Victorian law. This new initiative will enable couples to have certification of their relationship and improve their access to justice in practice".

About time this was done but wait until the Rodent gets in on the act.

PHOTOS OF CHRISTMAS

I lead such an exciting life that it's taken since December to fill a 24 film but I've picked them up just in time to avoid blogger's block. That's my sister's 2005 Christmas present that she received for Christmas 2006. The deep cerise is the colour of her bedroom but it goes well with the old brass bed and antique furniture. I used Neptune satin, right side for the cushion, wrong side for the ruffle. Don't ever use it without fraystop, it's a swine to work with and shreds itself the minute it's touched. The roses are hand stitched satin ribbon with purple glass and anodised cerise beads. I'm working on the matching one at the moment but the arrangement of the flowers is different although the colours are the same. She didn't put it in the bedroom as it went so well on the blue leather.

The 2006 present I managed to finish in time. After choking on the price of woven willow wreaths, I found this at Lincraft. It was just a plain steel circle with wired beads so I bound it in gold ribbon. The wreath part was made of tied ribbon bows in dusty mauve chiffon, gold mesh and gold/silver paper. I had the transparent purple baubles but managed to grab the last box of metallic purple balls and I mean "grab" as in shove someone aside and trample over the top. The colour was too perfect to let them go to a bad home.

DIET SUFFERS SEVERE INJURY

You lovely people know how well I handle stress and by the choc wrappers surrounding the computer, I'm handling it less well than usual.

Mum is going to respite care for two weeks. As the soothing girl said at the centre, the respite is for carers and to enjoy. I will, if I live to the 7th of May.

I left home at 10 this morning and got home at 5.30. Papers to the doctor's at Hampton, bills to pay at Westfield, the homestead to get Mum to sign the admission form, walk home to post the form and more papers for medication to the Pharmacy. Thank you dear neighbour who saw me staggering towards home and stopped at the corner.

It has been stress to the max with herself, agressive "You're not blackmailing me out of my home!" to sweetness and light "I might just go for a day or two for a trial." That's not what she told Aunt Patty and Aunt Selma. Jesus hates crumpets, fancy trying to talk sense to those two beetches. Aunt Selma hasn't seen her twin for l6 months and Aunt Patty's family would shove her in a nursing home if they were sure she'd be poisoned. Mum told Aunt Patty that she cried all Sunday night because we were doing this which was very clairvoyant of her since the drama started Monday* and the decision was made on Tuesday.

So it's signed, sealed and posted. My sister has already won a third of the money needed, on the horses and if the useless nag today hadn't got its head stuck in the starting gate probably would have had the lot. I get to label every single item that goes to the hostel. Would someone please tell me how to label teeth?

She's starting to be a bit happier now that I have marked in big letters the day she comes home. The other thing is that a neighbour of 50 years has recently moved into the hostel on a permanent basis and loves it so they're looking forward to chats about old times. The hostel is set in a beautiful garden and only 20 minutes from here. She'll have a phone in the room and if there's no TV, we'll take hers so she can sleep through the programmes just like home.

I would say Yippee, party time, break out the booze but I'm too bloody tired.

*Monday, can't read her book, that's because she's opened a DVD cover and is trying to read the DVD. Has put the washing on but I've already done it, I turn off the dryer that is going with nothing in it. Is putting the dishes in the dishwasher and telling nephew he shouldn't be in the kitchen so late in the morning, it is 6pm at night and he is cooking her tea. I know we all do stupid things like this but not on the same day.

THIS WEEK'S SERIOUS STUFF

It really is a serious question in what has been an extremely seriously seriously crapola week for me.

If you can answer this you get a prize and if you believe that, I also have a bridge I want to sell you and $4 million hidden in a gold mine in Africa.

Why does one have to have one last pee before all systems close down for beddie-byes?

It doesn't matter if I've been 12 times already and done it in the evening shower, the bladder always wins.

You can, and I have, ignore the subliminal message travelling along the neural networks but you'll end up dreaming you're trying to use a transparent glass toilet in the middle of a freeway at rush hour and being too gentrified to let go.

That's when you wake up and it's all hands to the pump (I wish I hadn't used that) and running not walking to the nearest lav although sometimes it's better to walk slowly, carefully keeping one's legs very close together but not as tight as a pelvic exercise.

This is another instance where women have it all over men (damn those 'Carry On' movies). We can get out of bed, walk, sit and sluice with our eyes shut. Men on the other hand can't aim and pee stone cold sober and with eyes wide open let alone half asleep thinking they're in a transparent glass toilet in the middle of a freeway at rush hour.

ANOTHER YEAR GONE

From 16 months to 16 years and the first big beautiful smile after the braces came off.

Today he would have been 36. Almost twice the age I was when I had him. I still can't imagine having a son that old. All mothers wonder what their children will become and I like what he became.

INTERNATIONAL POLAR YEAR

2007 is International Polar Year and an Australian, Dr. Michael Stoddart, is a leader of the Census of Antarctic Marine Life which is a project of the global Census of Marine Life. At the end of 2006, the research icebreaker, Polarstern, explored the underwater seabed exposed by the collapse of the Larsen A and B ice shelves, the former in 1995, the latter in 2002. The image below shows the broken connection between the Larsen B ice shelf and the Antarctic Peninsula.

When Antarctic glaciers reach the coast of the continent, they begin to float, becoming ice shelves from which flat topped icebergs calve. Since 1974, a total of 13,500 square kilometres of these shelves have disintegrated along the Antarctic Peninsula.

The Polarstern researchers, 52 scientists from 14 countries, used sophisticated sampling and observation gear including a camera-equipped remotely operated vehicle which revealed life on the uncapped sea bed. Nearly 1,000 species were collected including several which may be new to scientists. One of the aims of this expedition was not only to record indigenous marine life but discover which organisms were moving in. The ocean floor had been sealed off by the ice shelves for 5000 to 12000 years and now scientists can observe the impact of climate change on marine biodiversity and ecosystems.

One of the presumed new species is a sea anemone co-existing on the back of a snail in a symbiotic relationship, providing locomotion for one and protection for the other. It will need extensive analysis to determine if it is a new species.

The image above is of an Antarctic Ice Fish. It has no red blood pigments and no red blood cells. This means the blood is more fluid and the fish saves the energy needed to pump blood through the body. The sea bed is covered in brittle stars, two of which have been overgrown by a yellow sponge.

One major find were small clusters of dead clam shells which pointed to the presence of a rare 'cold seep', a sea floor vent which releases methane and sulphide. The opposite to the hot black smokers of the Pacific Ocean. The seep provides a temporary habitat and when it extinguishes, the community starves. The clam shells will be studied to determine their age and life span of the colony. Only one other cold seep has been discovered in the region, at a depth of 830 metres on the continental shelf.

There are 13 voyages scheduled for this International Polar Year and http://www.sciencepoles.org has been selected as the Internet reference for general polar research news and information.

LIFE IMITATES ART AGAIN

The US Army is going to use computer games to try and find recruits.

They going to spend $2.42 million to sponsor a channel at the Global Gaming League website.

A first-person shooter game based on the army training manual will be a centrepiece of the channel.

The game ranks in the top 10 most popular games of its kind and will be updated to attract potential recruits.

It's been done before by Hollywood. Remember 'The Last Starfighter'? Geeky kid, living in a trailer park plays a shootemup intergalactic electronic game and bags the big score. It turns out to be a recruiting game for an intergalactic shootemup space force and the geeky kid saves the universe.

It sounds like the sort of idea the Generals would love.

**STAR**

Well I don't really deserve a star but I'm giving myself one anyway. After flirting with the pav on Sunday and re-acquainting myself with the raspberry cheesecake on Thursday, I really wasn't expecting a good result but ****133.4kgs****. I have plenty of witnesses, the weight machine is in the dining room and 6 little old ladies hadn't finished lunch and they gave me a cheer.

It's been a stressful week, as Basil Faulty would say "Just don't mention the Mother!" and any other time I would have emptied the freezer and chocolates wouldn't have been safe in a bank vault.

Now to the chocolates. I was ferreting around in the top of the junk cupboard and found a small box which contained squares of gold foil paper. I used to make chocolates, I'd forgotten that I had a little business before I went into craft in a big way. The chocolate business went downhill when every cake decorating place suddenly had classes in chocolate making. I remember the horrible results of putting chocolate buttons in tiny plastic moulds and proud hostesses passing them around with the coffee. Suddenly every person was an expert. It was repeated over and over again with every craft craze.

After the papers, I went looking for the recipes. Why did I think I was a lazy person because I didn't have a tidy house? I never had time, kids, dogs, cats and a thoroughly incompetent moron, scrap that, he was a very good moron, incompetent husband. Along with the chocolate recipes was a list of things to do for one Christmas. There were chocolate orders to fill, 6 Christmas cakes to make and ice and 6 Christmas puddings. The puddings were easy, I always make a boiled fruit cake mix and cook it in cellophane. The cakes were much more involved because I used a recipe that contained coffee, plum jam, prunes and Tia Maria. It's a wonder the kitchen didn't spontaneously combust, all of the fruit was put in bowls with gallons of booze. TiaMaria for the cake and dry sherry for the puddings and according to my notes this had to be done by the beginning of November.

The chocolate recipes made my mouth water until I remembered how much my back would ache at the end of dipping day. I couldn't even buy cellophane bags to put them in, so I made my own in chocolate coloured cloth with tiny orange flowers, tied up with green and orange bows. Fabric doesn't rot, I found a piece in with the patchwork. Here are a few on my list......
Apricot Delights, Cherry Ripe, Caramels, Walnut fudge, Tia Maria truffles, Peppermint creams, Almond creams, Coffee truffles, Fruit and nut clusters. There's a little note on the Fruit and nut recipe, reminding me that I wouldn't get a good shine on the chocolate because of the amount of booze in the fruit.

For next Christmas, for old times sake I'm going to make one more cake. I'll even ice it. I'll give the chocs a miss though, they were hard, hard work.

SHOPPING DAY AGAIN

I bought a pair of ruby slippers on sale.

The cat's rations cost more than mine, as usual.

I got a $20 prize on a crossword scratchie.

I sweet talked the check-out chick at Safeway's into hiding the cat food I bought at Coles in with my home delivery.

I pondered why there are no cute check-out boys at Safeway's anymore.

In fact I couldn't find one single individual that was worth a second lascivious glance. Am I getting too old, need my eyesight checked or have they gone north for the winter?

I was good with my diet.

Lunch contained something from all of the food groups, carbohydrates, fat, protein, calcium and a serve of fruit. It just happened to come in the shape of raspberry cheescake, big home-made, full of real raspberries. I didn't put sugar in my long black. Now this was a real test of character and I failed miserably but but but but the shop hasn't had raspberry cheesecake since this time last year and it probably won't until next. Yes, that's a very good reason, I excuse myself from punishment.

I'M IN A BAD SAD MOOD

I need him to worship at my feet and bring me one dozen

gorgeous (match to him) pink iced (go well on him too) Hummingbird cupcakes and

a dozen Sticky Date cupcakes. ( he can stick to me anytime, anywhere)

Cupcakes courtesy of SuYin, Cookingismypassion.blogspot

The other cupcake courtesy of genetic serendipity.

SO DO YOU REMEMBER.....

Just where you were when you first saw the 'Grim Reaper' ads warning us of the danger of AIDS.

It's the 20th anniversary of that ad and now the experts want a new campaign. You can read it here http://www.ssonet.com.au/display.asp?ArticleID=6392 (nice work Harley) I think if they've got $10 million for this, it should be put towards sex education in schools. That ad certainly put AIDS in the minds of every person who saw it but quite a number of gay men think that instead of demonising the virus, it demonised them and they had to live with even greater prejudice. According to Paul Kidd, editor of 'Positive Living' people became aware there was a disease they could get from gay men and that created a division between the gay and straight worlds. On the other hand that fear generated a great deal of money for research into the virus.
Australia handled the epidemic a lot better than America ever did, with less hysteria and lower infection rates.

The ad which screened at the same time as the reaper was, to me, more effective in showing how easily the virus could spread. I don't remember the exact wording but it had two people in bed and the voice over asked 'Do you know who you slept with last night?' The camera then panned over a number of beds with couples. Would either of them work today? For a start, teens are not in front of a TV screen, they're in front of a computer downloading their favourite shows without ads. With the reaper ad, would this frighten anyone who watches the news at night with its war deaths, tsunami deaths, motor fatalities let alone watching films like 'Saw' or 'Wolf Creek'.

Twenty years ago 'teen' age was around 16, these days it's down as low as 13. There are more drugs, binge drinking, underage sex and sexually transmitted infections than ever before. Information and education about STIs haven't kept up with information about drugs and drink. There are no stats I can give you, just word of mouth from teens. I have no patience with adults who say if there's sex education and information taught in schools, then their kids will want to run out and try it. Halfwits, they're already doing it. As well as condom vending machines in toilets of both genders, put a rack of STI information beside it and load it with graphic photographs. The problem is, we have more religious nutjobs than we had twenty years ago and with a lot more influence than they should have.

When people stopped dying from the complications of AIDS and drug regimes became the norm, HIV went from being a gay disease to a druggie's disease to a sex worker's disease and now it's a third world disease. It's still a death sentence in Africa and S.E. Asia but here it's thought of as an inconvenience that can be controlled with a pill. It's not a death sentence but it's a life sentence and that's the message that has to be pushed at young people, gay or straight.

THE MOON

I'm sitting here at 10.35 watching the moon rise over the rooftop. I can't remember if it's waxing or waning gibbous because I haven't got one of those neat little moon phase thingys and even if I did blogger would somehow shove it to the bottom of the page.

So I've written about the moon rising before but it was earlier in the evening and it looked bigger and it was in the left corner of my window. Now it's later and it's in the right corner of my window. I wonder why it's like that, I say to myself.

Because the Earth's turning you cloth-brained bint.

BAKING

I am baking or perhaps baking isn't the right word for a pavlova. I may have a visitor tomorrow so I thought I'd treat us to a pav, cream but not the usual fruit, crushed peppermint crisp and Cadbury's dark velvet flakes.

The diet is not dead. The grand weigh-in today was a bit disappointing - 134.4kg but as my sister pointed out that is over a pound in the old fat.

This is where I get confused. I keep thinking I have to lose a kilo a week because I'm still thinking in pounds where a good loss was a pound a week. I had to rat around in the bottom of the cake pan cupboard to find my scales and work out pound to kilo ratio and the news is good not disappointing. Now to work out the other stuff, 14 pounds in a stone and I've lost about 9 so that makes 5 to go before I really celebrate. I stopped trying to work out how many stones there are in 100kgs, it was making my brain hurt. I can visualise in pounds but not kilos and it's the same with centimetres. Say 2 inches and I've got it but in centimetres, I have to get the tape measure. You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

I was busy measuring the ingredients with my teaspoons/tablespoon and I got all old feeling because I had been given these as a wedding present. I can't believe something plastic lasted longer than he did. A look in that drawer where all kitchen usefuls live (oops, quick dash to the oven and pav is cooked and looking yum, a little sugar weepy but cover it with cream) brought to light all manner of odments that have outlasted him. What did the man want with 7 bottle openers apart from getting terminally pissed? I recognised a few as Christmas presents, how well the family knew him. They got shoved to the back when stubbies were invented and the family gave him stubby holders instead. Some terrible person burnt them in the barbecue just after he left.

In case there's interest, I'm also having salmon, sour cream and feta cheese tarts tomorrow possibly with a golden soy mayonnaise with herbs. I can't leave egg yolks hanging around doing nothing. Bless those happy chooks on Kangaroo Island.

UNEXPECTED SURPRISE

I have a portable DVD player courtesy of my sister's big feet. She has a TV at the foot of the bed and watches it when insomnia takes over. She bought the portable DVD for herself and it is now mine. She managed to fall out of bed, get her foot caught in the power cord of the TV and sent the whole thing flying. It wasn't much fun watching everyone looking like the green part of the Hulk so she went to the scratch and dent warehouse and now has a TV with an inbuilt DVD player. But be warned about these, the warehouse is full of televisions with DVD players that don't play, very cheap but hardly a bargain really.

After a year of buying my favourite movies, I can watch them. I can't watch them in bed, I can't get comfortable but set up on a TV table in front of my chair it's passable. Any film that has a lot of action tends to make the eyes shoot around and Harry Potter is just not the same on a 5 by 7 inch screen.

It's better than the tripe that's playing on the box this week. Fascinated as I am with all things forensic, the sixth repeat of any CSI program tends to be boring. Why was it necessary to remove 'Stargate Atlantis' this week and does 'Crossing Jordan' have to be moved around to accommodate 'Dancing with the Stars'? Well I don't care now I can turn it all off and watch 'Serentity'.

TALKING ABOUT MY KITCHEN.....

Well we weren't but I will. After one step up a ladder today, that's one step, the first step, any higher and I get altitude sickness, I realised that the body is getting old. (insert sniggering here)

In my younger days and married to an object of decoration masquerading as a husband, I was the one who painted, wallpapered, cooked but never cleaned unless the month had an 'R' in it.

I remember him moaning in bed supposedly with the flu but in reality just his Monday morning 'brown ale virus' and me in the kid's room slapping up the second coat of paint while tending to a roast in the oven. He took his life in his hands by asking for food and pointing out an area I'd missed in a corner.

Now the kitchen which I had specified to be painted in gloss before we moved in, wasn't, so with himself being the greatest splasher and splotcher of all times, it wasn't long before a paint job was necessary. In my innocence I decided that I would paint it Gloss, a bright cheery pale lemon Gloss and not just the walls, I would paint the roof.

I painted the kids, the dogs, (lemon works well on black labs) and the cats. I didn't even have a ladder in those days. I stood on chairs, walked around the benchtops and utilised the kitchen table. I discovered one of life's truths, gloss paint takes forever to dry......on kids, dogs, cats and walls but especially when it's dropping off a ceiling onto the kids, dogs, cats etc. It doesn't peel off the skin like flat plastic paint, you have to scrub down several layers to basement epithelia.

But I had my lemon kitchen which made me happy until I saw "the wallpaper". It was white with lemon wild flowers and pale green leaves, delicate and fresh. I left the ceiling lemon and the walls were delicate and dainty as were the lace curtains framing the dirty dishes. Wallpaper 101, do not put anything but vinyl in a kitchen especially with a splotcher in residence.

Painters hate Gloss. They will do anything but paint Gloss. I paid the equivalent of the GNP of a small country to get one to paint Gloss in the kitchen. I scraped off the wild flowers while the decoration sat on his decorative backside. But I had my white gloss kitchen with the white gloss ceiling. He flicked spaghetti bol across the ceiling a week later. It washed straight off. I love Gloss.

PROBLEMS

I have a few of them, problems that is.

Anybody know why blogger has decided to plonk my witchy gravatar and profile to the very bottom of the blog?

Why aren't ladders made with wider steps?

Why do stupid women go up ladders instead of washing the wall with a broom while standing on solid ground?

Why is it murphy's law that if I bang my shin on the blanket box, I'll do it again in the same spot at least three more times?

Why does it take this government no time at all to send the rodent around the world but takes days to get aid to tsunami victims?

IT'S APRIL ALREADY

My feet hurt because I walked 6 kms just to find out I've lost some more weight.

135.1kgs

I really wanted to take off my dress to lose that .1 but I didn't want to frighten the horses.

No applause?

It's only been two weeks but there could be a slight cheer, a mild clapping of hands, a well done now get on with the big lose.

I need another incentive. I think I'll have one of those 'Starshots' done. This time they won't have to airbrush out the blubber, they can use it to fill the wrinkles.