Saturday, January 30, 2010

SOME IDIOT GETS MONEY FOR THESE IDEAS


Behold, a traffic light sandwich for the kiddies' lunch box. Cheese on the bottom, tomato up one end and lettuce down the other and make sure the cheese shows in the middle. You will notice the crusty bits have been sawn off so the little horrors don't break their teeth.
If I picked this up I would have every ingredient down the front of me in two seconds.
Not even June Cleaver would go this far.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

I'M ON THE DOWNHILL SLIDE

Dear little man at Optusnuts, you with the silly musketeer moustache and chin fluff, next time check the bloody number and make sure you haven't transposed two of them. No I didn't get the Optusnuts message because it was in a box in my bag on the way to the home in a noisy bus.
Now that is fixed and I'll take the phone back to mummy on Sunday.
The final reading arrived from AGL, paid and done.
The NOT final reading arrived from SE Water with an enormous credit. I rang up and the final account will have an even more enormous credit so as PoA, I'm transferring it to my sister's account. I have an enormous credit balance on my SE Water account so I'm either not showering enough or not doing enough washing of clothes or watering the garden.
The second draft of the will arrived and I still think he's leaving everything to the cat. Call the office and tell them he'll have to walk round to the home and get the signature but ring first in case they're cavorting at the Sportsman's Club in Mordialloc or coffee-ing at the Lolly Jar or stripping the shelves at the Chinese Emporium.
My phone bill arrived.
All this before I was outside the gate this morning.
Cab it to the home and grab the mobile, give mother her new book, pay up for lunch on Sunday and walk to the bus stop. Just remembered I have a scratchie in my purse, I could be rich and exhausted.
Damn, Big W doesn't have paint sample pots anymore.
Then Optusnuts where I look at mobile phone covers for mother but since they cost almost as much as the phone, I give them miss. Wish I could have crushed the feet of rampaging munchkins.
Shop at Safeway. Backtrack when I remember I now have a cat who likes to eat. Backtrack again because I forgot the parrot bells. So much backtracking I forget to buy chocolate or ice-cream. Faint at sight of the money going out. Bloody cat and expensive sparkly kitty litter.
Pay bills at Post Office where I find out about the difference between credit and debit on a water bill. Stupidly buy copy paper because it's cheap but still weighs a tonne and I have to carry it.
"THE BANK" is next. The least the tart could have done was ask me to sit down as I produced passport, bank cards, Power of Attorney, cheque book and the account I wanted to start up. Then I couldn't deduct the amount of money to deposit to get the balance left in the cheque account. A bit like last night when I couldn't for the life of me remember what street I lived in and just kept pointing a finger in the general direction.
Sneak everything out of the NAB and hide it so they can't have the interest until I move the pension to St. George.
Sit down for coffee and tiramisu. Bad mistake, somewhere under the table my feet went on strike and starting yelling for better working conditions.
Mustn't forget New Scientist magazines even though I'm still reading September's editions and spot new bead mag which I couldn't resist. Now if I could just reach the beads and get time to do something.
I am heading for the taxi rank, I detour for the salad bar and then I'm home, just in time to carry all the groceries inside. Actually it was good timing as he has been delivering my bags for so long with the only tip being a bag of lemons when they're ripe. He has always loved the large chimes at my front door and today I gave him the chimes from mum's place. I would have put them up at the back door but front, back and side chimes might be just a bit too much for the whinging neighbours.
Ring sister who repeats her request for copies of what's going on in case I get run over by a bus.
When I bloody know what's going on, I'll tell her.
And her Avon lady's gone on long service leave, could I ring mine and put in an order for her?
Superwoman does but only because she said I could keep the pretty silver bag the stuff comes in.
And I need a new hard drive.
And more gin.
And the cat's missing somewhere.
What doesn't kill you, makes you strong.
Pig's bum, it just drives you to drink, drugs and gambling.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

RIGHT ON TARGET FOR THE FEBRUARY 2 BREAKDOWN

It's been a joyful day again, full of lovely stress and dealing with lovely people who are forced to work for moronic companies who couldn't tell bum from nose or in the colourful vernacular, wouldn't know if a yellow cab was up them until the doors flew open.
SE Water put a direct debit through on a house that was sold on Jan. 15. I pointed out that I'd stopped the DDs before that and why hadn't I had a final account? Ah, people who love me, the final account doesn't arrive until the solicitor sends in the papers of sale and then it takes up to two weeks to arrive at the place where they scab money from the punters. I'll get a refund though.
AGL next. What would we do for complaints without that empire of incompetance? I've paid the electricity account and ring up for the final gas account. The final total seems very small so I ask for a complete check. "Oh my," she says, "that was a mess." She goes away to confer with accounts expert and the money goes up but not as much as I thought it would. Apparently when I ring for a total, they give me electricity and gas together even though I 've finalized one. The account will arrive shortly.
Centrelink Confusion Office did exactly that so I grabbed every piece of paper that I might need and decide to arrive in person. That's after I print out the bank statement. That's when the printer fritzed itself so I hand write everything. While I'm copperplating the account, the wind outside goes bang and so does my phone wire and internet connection. Panic because I haven't securely logged out of my bank account. Much swearing and more credits used up on the mobile trying to get a taxi.
Centrelink un-confuses me. Lets me use their computer to print out the bank statement and I'm impressed at the speed. I might consider broadband except for what comes next. All mum's details are being processed. Her pension will go down but I can put most of the money in a high interest savings account and leave what I like in her cheque account. Hopefully they don't decide to put up the accommodation fee while the pension is going down. I see the bank tomorrow and do all of this then piss off the NAB for not giving me a cheque book and just annoying me in general.
Trundle up to grab a cab to see mother when I pass the Gem shop, almost pass the Gem shop.
I must go in, I need to find out if Grandmother's ring has diamonds or glass. Neither, they are man-made spinels but quite good quality for the 30s so I arrange to have the missing one replaced. (don't think of cost) While I'm here I might as well buy the two CZs to go with my alexandrite, man-made but still has a lovely colour change from purple to smokey green. So they were inexpensive, might as well have a look at citrines to go with the Peridot. Pissy colours but so we go looking in the more expensive tray. Two trillion cut rich brown/red garnets later and I'm signing for quotes for two rings that will make me very happy until I get the quotes.
Happiness lasts until I try to phone mum and tell her about Nana's ring. Optusnet informs me that this number has been disconnected. Didn't I spend most of Monday on the phone to optusnuts making sure it was connected? Of course I did. Tomorrow I'm going up there and I'm going to break that little halfwit's legs and I can do it because I'm bigger than he is and I only have to fall on him completely by accident to do damage.
There was my day and it hasn't finished, I'm on the third Gin and tonic and I can still type. I'll need a fourth to calm down as a whole Toblerone didn't do a thing. It'll be the pills next or the Port.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

RUN NOW HAZELBLACKBERRY, RUN FAST


I shouldn't do that to HB who will now really need a bex and a good lie down.
I have two of these.
One in the letter box but he's eating the black spiders so he's safe.
The other is living in the old fridge out the back and that's only been there a week.
I found him when he ran over my hand when I was looking for the cat last night and did I need oxygen after that.
Fortunately I had the torch to see where he ended up when I flung him into space.
I had the torch because I couldn't find the cat.
One whole hour I searched for that flaming cat, in the dark, with a torch....and spiders.
I have five Orb spiders, five that I found.
Two in the apple tree branches.
One going from the outside of the apple tree to the spouting on the house so there's no going up the path to get washing off the line after 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
Another is still spinning from my bedroom window to the Mandarin tree.
So with my trusty Dolphin Lantern I walked around the tree to get up the side of the house.
And I thought the others were big.
This was the Godzilla of Orbs.
The web went from the Mandarin tree to the fence and down to the ground.
So realizing I was surrounded by trees, I swung the light in every direction before tiptoe-ing at a ripping pace to the safety of home sweet home.
Bloody cat sauntered in 20 minutes later and parked itself on my bed in front of the fan.

Friday, January 22, 2010

ALWAYS SOMETHING NEW

Today I found out that glass is still semi fluid so that a very, very old mirror is always thicker at the bottom than the top because the glass flows.
It explains a lot about the ever descending tits and bum of fat old ladies. I wonder if my feet are getting larger?
And men? Lordy that's going to set me crotch watching again.
An enquiring mind can be a hazard.

Also today, I found out that there is a great whopping GST on funerals.
Even the dead can't escape the money grabbers in Canberra.

I'M BEHIND MYSELF (a great hiding place)

Twenty minutes into today and I'm still getting over yesterday which is why I'm not in bed sound asleep.
I would have been out and away but I waited for the post since AGL have only sent the electricity bill and not the gas bill. Still waiting for SE Water as well. Once I've paid those then it's off to Centrelink with the masses of paperwork.
Down to see mother with a new mobile phone and a new portable DVD player. She didn't want a television, the player is enough and I bought the one with the 9 inch screen which plays for 5 hours without being plugged in, after it's been charged up. That should stop her from yanking the cord out and breaking the wires.
And do I care that she's going to be completely confused with all the instructions, not on yer nelly! She has plenty of young'uns used to these new-fangled contraptions and they get to help her.
After guiding her through bingo and eating her chocolate prizes, it was up to the Council chambers to put in the cat registration papers, proof of microchipping, proof of sterilization and a reminder that now I get to pay for the beast in April.
Down the lane, across the road and set up a collection date for the op-shop stuff and successfully leave the shop without buying one thing, not even a book.
Walk further down to post mother's letters. One to Aunt Selma who is threatening to come down for their combined birthdays in March. (the joy of tearing up some of her old photos is making me quite giddy)
Now right to the other end of Mentone to the solicitor's to put in the corrected papers for the new will which is written in legalese, not English and probably leaves everything to the cat.
I decided then that I would have a meal and a glass of red at the pub for tea. Halfway through the rather nice red, I remembered the cat. See, I can't even be responsible for a 16 year old moggie but I had left food, water and kitty litter and it was still light when I got home. I took her for a walk round the garden and she consented to sit on my lap for half an hour, only because the fan was blowing her way. She's now back in the sewing room, where she's made a comfortable bed on my snowy white Broderie Anglais tri-pillow.
Snowy white it was, but a domestic black and white short hair that isn't supposed to shed, has and the cover is unbelievable.
Somewhere in all this, my mother has volunteered me to make two hair combs for the Chef. I really should stop stuffing my face long enough to listen to what she's saying. I didn't miss the "Will you be here for lunch on Sunday?" though.

Friday, January 15, 2010

SHOPPING WITH YOUNG LADIES

After a heading like that, my advice is not to do it.

Antikva and I were practically holding each other up as we watched her daughters try on the most vertiginous stilletos I've ever seen.
Her ankle wasn't good and my knees were curling up in horror.

Youngest bought a very pretty pair of fuschia coloured 6 inchers which I loved.
In fact I loved every pair in the shop except those with the inbuilt platform soles, hate them.

See it makes you feel really old when you know you'll never wear anything as pretty as these shoes ever again. The only thing you can hope for is Homeyped clodhoppers in glitter.


In case anyone's worrying about the cat, don't bother. It has left the middle of my queen bed exactly 7 times in 36 hours and one of those was when it tried to sleep on my aching feet and got chucked off.
It already knows where the food is, kitty litter, water dish, bed and not to go out in the dark where the possums are hiding.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

AND SO IT CONTINUES

How does one cope with a three month settling?
I have to be out at sparrow's fart tomorrow to drop off the keys to people who don't realize how long it takes if you don't have a car.
Then Centrelink to pick up more papers.
Then Southland to finish the shopping I didn't do today when I was phoned and told the cat was on the way.
My sister wanted to know why I was so long.
I wasn't stupid enough to tell her I was buying a mobile phone for mum. Just a plain no frills phone, $39 and $50 credit so people can call her. I'll discuss with the girls in charge just who will keep it and give it to her when a call comes in. It's in my name and if she annoys me I'll take it away.
I have netting all over the gate and a ute in the drive way.
I have a black and white furball sound asleep in the middle of my queen bed and I don't think it's going to move.
I've had to ring AGL, SE Water and Mastercard. It seems their various departments don't share information about a house that has been sold.
I have two pages to fill out about the change of address for the cat and I have to produce copies of its microchip and sterilization certificates.
I had to produce my passport at Optusnet to prove I wasn't a terrorist. All the terrorists I've heard about have a passport.
The new fridge is here and what a pain. It opens opposite to the old one so crashes into the wall when the door opens but on the good side, after 2o years it's nice to see a light go on inside. The old one is sitting pathetically outside and I feel as though I've just shot the family dog. 39 years of faithful service and still going strong when I unplugged it. The new one is too tall but I won't see the dirt. Still haven't put the shelves in, I have to wash them first and that too much like hard labour.
Did I mention I was tired? So tired I paid my visa payment twice.
I need a holiday.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

I LOVE THE WILD LIFE

I have an Orb spider. The first one for years but did it have to spin the web between the Mandarin tree and my bedroom window then do a 180 turn and spin it across my window?
I can't wait for the first AGL gas reader to hit it head on.

In the cool of tonight I washed my hair and wound a towell around it until I had put the tea on.
Ran some gel through and combed. Combed a giant silverfish out of my hair eeeww! He was nicely dead and very clean but I really hope he was hiding in the towell.

I have a big red rashy bite on my shoulder blade from something that fell out of a tree and down my dress. I can get anti-itch cream on it by pretending to be a contortionist and dislocating the other shoulder. I have no idea what it was but I did a thorough search of all clothes.

I've had a word with the Orb. I won't spray it with lethal chemicals if it eats everything else in the garden except the cat. The cat has been de-flea'd and better stay that way or I'll have another chat with the Orb.

Friday, January 08, 2010

FLEETWOOD, DON'T BE A HERO


Our beloved ditchdigging Brian is underneath all that snow. He's such a noble creature, he'd stagger out looking for food for the cats and not think of himself.
Listen lad, don't think of Scott of the Antarctic, don't be a hero, drink every bit of booze in the house and roast the cats. We'll send you replacements.

RIP OFF MERCHANTS

First off, we have a skip being delivered next week for the last of the junk.
Cost is $300.
Fair enough, it's a 4m bin.
But if we can't get it in the carport because it's lowered by a crane thingy and might hit the roof then we have to pay $65 to the council for a permit to park it on the nature strip for 24 hours.
If we don't then the bin man gets fined $200 and so do we.
I'd pay for a permit for a week but 24 hours?

Now if anybody finds a cache of redbacks would they please send them to the head office of AGL.
If anybody deserves a delivery of angry redbacks that bunch do.
I rang on the 29th of December to order a final meter reading for gas and electricity on the 15th of January. I know they told me they needed 3 working days but I decided to give them enough time to get their heads out of their backsides to do the job.

All the call centre had to do was put in the request to stop the direct debits and put a stop on all other payments (bill smoothing) until after the 15th when I received the final amount.

Too easy, I should have known.

They removed three bill smoothing amounts from an account that didn't have enough money.
Two of the amounts were rejected, insufficient funds.
They then took out 24 direct debits on the 31st of December leaving the account $681 in arrears.
I fired off an email to the bank demanding an explanation.
On Tuesday 24 direct debits were reversed.
I then had an email that said they couldn't get me any information because my name was not on the account and my PoA was only registered at the local branch.

AGL was next because yesterday I received 24 letters from them each one telling me the same thing, that they were terminating the Direct Debit service because my payments were not being processed by my financial institution.

The mature age call centre lady had enough brains to demand a supervisor immediately to clear up the mess including the amount of money they demanded for the inconveniance of dealing with me. I now have until the 14th of February to pay all accounts.

I had no problems with the insurance, in fact I had a $7.07 credit from them
I had no problems with SE water.

After all this, I'm not going anywhere Myki until Koskey the Klown hands me my ticket personally.

Thursday, January 07, 2010

THERE WILL BE NO DROOLING, THEY'RE UNDER AGE


This is my beautiful 17 year old (February 2010) granddaughter


And this is my equally beautiful 15 year 0ld granddaughter.

These have been posted on Facebook so
I'm not invading any privacy
and I want to show them off.

Monday, January 04, 2010

FULL MOON SURPRISE

WITCHY DOES HAPPY DANCE.

WITCHY'S BEAUTIFUL GRANDDAUGHTER TURNED UP THIS MORNING.

WITCHY DOES MORE HAPPY DANCING.



STRANGE

I cannot describe how strange it is to be looking at photos of my father and realizing that he was the same age as my son would have been now.

It's the same with my mother. Looking at them at the old fashioned dinner dances, just hitting their thirties and then wondering what I was doing at that age.

I read somewhere, don't ask because I've forgotten, a man said he disliked the Mona Lisa because she had cruel eyes. When I put my hand over the bottom half of her face, I could see what he meant. I've done that a lot with photographs of me. The longer I was married, the eyes lost the smile that my mouth performed.

Old photographs are useful for memory. What year did the mirror go on the wall? How long ago did we get rid of that awful lounge suite? I thought those curtains were almost new and they've been up, how long?

But the boys, I can't look at the boys. My son with the golden curls, my nephew with the brown ones, always together. They were closer than brothers, closer than just friends, always planning trouble, in trouble or charming their way out of trouble.

There was one photograph that I wished had more detail, was larger so I could really see them. It was a rare holiday at the beach, cold enough for them to be rugged up and wearing beanies but there they were, arms around each other, standing in the waves which were slowly filling their gumboots and they were laughing. Freezing, soaking wet but laughing.

For all the New Agers that are waiting for the end of the world in 2012, blink and you'll miss it.
I blinked and 25 years disappeared.

Sunday, January 03, 2010

DID I SAY THIS?

I'm sure I did say that once everything was over at my place, I could go through it at my leisure.
Decide what to keep, what to throw out, what to go to the op-shop.
Well, it's all here.
I didn't know whether the BrickOutHouse would bring it today just because he said he would.
He did and he picked me up at the home, a ride instead of bus, lovely.
He carried in a tv corner cabinet which I can barely move. It now has the tv on top and the dvd player on top of that as he was too tired to fiddle with the wires.
After looking at the rest of the stuff, I was too tired too.
After the Salvo's have been and I expect them to reject the lounge suite, the leather is too bad to fix on the chairs, then my sister gets her heart's desire and I'll hire a skip for the rubbish.
Why does everything look so much bigger in my house than it did at mother's?
Still I have a nice new half rug to go under my chair but that comes under the heading of hard work. Move the side table, take the chair off the bricks, remove old rug, look for cockroach that fell out of the mail last week, vacuum and put new rug down, also put everything back except cockroach.
Too tired for that today.
Mother has a very sore throat so rings me last night for a packet of butter menthols.
So I decide to catch the bus and walk through Coles.
It pours rain, still pouring at bus stop, still pouring as I decide to walk to the pharmacy for shelter and butter menthols. Oh goodie, Darryl Lea candies are half price, that's worth getting soaked for.
While I'm waiting for the bus, the sun comes out and is so hot it dries my soaking dress and scarf.
Mother still has a sore throat so it looks like she's getting a cold but she hopes not as her social life next week is very busy. They're going out for shopping and lunch, then Aunt Patty's coming down so they can bitch about Aunt Selma and then there's two days of bingo. I should have taken her a kilo bag of butter menthols instead of just a packet.
And just to finish off, please let there be a special place in Hell for whoever invented those monstrous magnetic photo albums. I've managed to get the photos out of one but the others are older and harder to shift. Still it has been fun tearing up the relos I've never liked not to mention the ex. I gave my sister the proofs from her wedding to tear up but by the look on her face she was going home to burn his eyes out with a cigarette.

I think I'll have some alone time tomorrow. I have candies and a book.

Shut up, Robbert, I'll get to the Post Office by the end of the week before my breakdown.