Twas the night before Christmas

And I found a present for me. Bombay Sapphire, nothing new, you say.
Well, bites yer tongues!
This is only one of four to be made.
The bottle is covered in 10,000 swarovski crystals and it comes in a white leather case.
It's a snip at $3,960.
I have until January 6 to win Tattslotto and make it mine. Bwahahahahhaha!

I'm still here

Bruised and battered like a slab of flake but still soldiering on.
I went to Southland, cheated, went by taxi but promised I would catch the bus home. That didn't happen. By the time I walked from one end of that place to the other I was closer to the taxi rank and my knees hurt.
Next time I won't bother taking a walking stick, too dangerous to lean on as the floor is quite slippery and goes downhill in places. The temptation to belt obnoxious kids with the stick is too close for comfort. A trolley is better, holds everything and accidentally hitting something obnoxious is just an accident.
I was good, I didn't have a cake....up there. But as the mince pie season is limited I did bring one home for a nom, a very slow nom.

We seem to have the season of hooning around here at the moment.
Last week it was a gang of three that decided to rattle my gates off their hinges. Bad luck to them, BrickOutHouse and mate were out the front door so fast they blurred and said hoons were chased down the street.
Also last week, HerNextDoor was nearly run down by another/same gang of three riding those scooter things on the footpath. Zipping past her, they let loose with a barage of obsenities.
The same week, some person walked up the drive of her house, rifled the cars which they'd forgotten to lock and they didn't hear a thing. I don't think she thought that this person/persons might have watched the house and knew their bedroom was at the back of the house away from the drive.
BrickOutHouse immediately thought of the Mazda shell languishing at the end of my drive. I mean who would give it any thought, it's a shell that looks like it's been through an atomic blast.
But, but, it has "an engine" for which Top Gear would pay money for. You see I totally 'FAIL' motor car engines. He's worried about that and his other car is parked out the front where everyone can see the expensive bike helmet, clothes, various coins on the floor (handy when one is a bit short at the servo) and tools. The worry of it all, what with hailstones and storms on the ducco of the ute, it's never ending.

Never ending is right. Midnight last night, I'm writing in my diary, he's on the net and crash bang from outside. Another load of hoons are pushing over the bins, all of the bins in the street.
He's halfway out the door with one leg in his jeans and in the car after them. They had pushed over every bin and were starting on the next street and thank goodness it wasn't recycle bin night. He gave them quite a mouthful and checked which house they skulked into but I don't recall them at all. Then he came back and picked up neighbour's bins and ours and all the rubbish which earned him a big tick from HerNextDoor who was terribly embarrassed because her rubbish was really on the bugle. *snigger*

Now if we're both out together the house will have to be locked up. Still, as one of my relatives used to say, if burglars walked in here, they'd walk straight out thinking it had already been turned over. Damn cheek!

Dear little Robin

Robins and Blue wrens would have to be my favourite birds, don't you agree, Jayne?

Not falling over for at least a week would be my favourite wish for the festive season.

Yep, did it again this morning.

A real flying through the air without a trapeze and a landing that shook me teeth loose.

I was putting Tonic water in the booze cupboard and a pot on the stove started to boil over and I turned, got twisted in one of those evil green bags and off I went.

There seemed to be at least 4 people yelling and sobbing on the kitchen floor until I pulled myself together. I did manage to turn off the stove, two pots, one holding my breakfast eggs, while lying prone. I always did have a reach like a sick dog.

After the screaming stopped I pulled myself up onto the padded sofa that masquerades as my arse and took stock of the damage. I'm surprised to see my slippers facing me. I actually tripped and flew out of my slippers and there they are, looking at me with a smirk on their dials. I've hit the cup and saucer bookcase with one hand and pushed that into the fridge which meant I went off centre and landed on the right knee just before the left knee just before the shallow swallow dive to the tiles.

Still sobbing and looking for sympathy from the cat who is sitting at an empty dish, I get nothing but "feed me" vibes from the bastard. As I'm on the floor I grab a can from the cat food pantry (what makes you think it's a human pantry) and start the slow bum walk to the lounge where I can find a chair to get me off the floor. Lordy but the floor needs a brooming especially under the crystal cabinet. Throw the contents of the can into the cat dish and continue (with empty can) round the carpet and round the carpet to the front of my chair. Oh here comes the pain again but I manage to not kneel on the crumbling kneecaps and collapse in chair and I'm still holding the empty catfood can. Can I multi-task or what?

Ten minutes and I'm back in the kitchen because I have to eat for these diabetic tablets which is why I was rushing around in the first place, get breakfast, get breakfast, get breakfast. So I did and took the pills. Slapped icepacks on knees, got rid of catfood can, abused cat soundly then went to bed in my clothes and slept.

The bruises are looking good. Thank you Mr. Myiga, pain is my friend. I'm on two walking sticks as one leg seems to be inclined to collapse, that'd be the right one, it's not used to being a fall guy.

BrickOutHouse in shock and has forbidden me to leave the house until Christmas lunch with mother. I totally agree except for a short walk to get the papers. I'm sure if I walk slowy and take 30 minutes, that'll my exercise for the day.

If I don't blog for a while, send money, it'll make me feel better.

Awwwwww!

Isn't he just gorgeous and fierce looking and my, but isn't he fat. It's an indication of how bad the snow and winter is going to be in England when the robins look like they're going to burst.

Just spent a spewderful two hours at the home. Love Christmas carols, not. Hate waggling silly bloody tambourines unless I can draw blood on some oldie's head.

Two more fell off the twig last week and one in hospital for three days with a mild stroke. Ma can't keep up with the farewell cards. So two hours down there and not once did she ask how I was. When I told her what was wrong, she said I should slow down and not do so much. Thank you mother, and then she asked me to take a card to her mate right down the end of the home.
Remark unprintable.

My sister won third prize in the raffle so we dropped it in. One hour there and she didn't ask how I went at the doc's either. If I wasn't so bloody fat I'd think I was invisible.

BrickOutHouse has a new toy. I can't see the fun in playing with an 8 inch furry remote controlled black tarantula and neither can the cat. We might have to drop a brick on it. I repeat, Christmas is crap.

Just another drip in the Chinese water torture of life

It appears that in the last 12 months I've managed to develope Type 11 Diabetes.
I can't imagine how that happened.
Now it's more medication for diabetes and cholesterol.
And more instruction for food management, medication management, podiatry in case of footrot.

There is an answer for all this, I could have lapband surgery which apparently is genius in controlling not only weight but diabetes. Guess who's not going near a surgeon, hospital or lapbanding operation? I don't care how they do it, it's not happening.

Apart from the fact that I get this news right before the Christmas goodie season, a trial in itself.
I thought that, at last, I might get to live a life of my own but now I get to live a life dictated by various dictators of what to eat, when to eat it and do as you're tolders.

No doubt I'll deal with all this in a week or two and I've managed to read the reams of crap I've already been given, considering I don't smoke, hardly drink except for a Bombay on a summer's night, get exercise by falling over and getting back up and a pensioner's loot doesn't stretch to Fois Gras or French Butter, I'm four down the list already.

I knew Christmas was going to be crap.

The hell that is Telstra

One hour on the phone to toss the pre-paid wireless into oblivion.

That was yesterday before the post came with another 3 page account for the ADSL broadband that was never connected.

It was impossible to figure out the amount to pay even if I was connected to the internet.

Another hour on the phone, half for the phone account child to realize that I should be at the Internet account department.

Internet account department adult male admits defeat and asks me to hold while he goes for an oxygen break. At last it is finished (whisper that) and the non-existant ADSL is non-existant. My homeline with pensioner concession is restored. (whisper that)

"Could I please have an amended account so I can pay?"

I can hear breathing, mumbling, breathing and he speaks! I owe Telstra $8.64.

I'll be paying that on Thursday.

Never breathe a sigh of relief

No, never do that if you have any dealings with Telstra.

Front of the latest Internet account, you know the account, the one I don't have any more.

Amount on your last bill $178.28
Amount you paid $0.00
Adjustments $59.00 cr

Your balance $119.28
New Charges $5.00

Total due $124.28

Back of the account
Adjustments Breakdown
04 Nov Telstra Mobile Casual Plan $10.00cr
04Nov 3G Data Pack 3GB $49.00cr

New Charges Breakdown
01 to 30 Nov
Fee for overdue account payment $5.00
Total for account charges & credits $5.00

Telstra Mobile Casual Plan $10 included calls
01 Nov to 18 Nov $00000

I have no idea where they got $119.28 from and far from being overdue, it isn't since the account has been closed since the 19th November, the modem has been sent back. That was a scream, they sent a pre-paid bag for the modem and it didn't fit inside. I had to cut off the pre-paid and wrap the box and stick it on top.
Nowhere on the account does it say anything about the $70.00 credit I had after closing the account. If I don't pay by the 22nd of December they're going to hit me with a $15 late fee for an account I don't have.
I hope the call centre is operating at full strength tomorrow. That is, if I can press the right buttons to even get to the right part of the call centre for non accounts. And they're wondering why Telstra shares are dropping.

I wish I'd thought of this

Knowing that I'd used the ex's toothbrush to do this somewhere in my married life would make me feel so much better today.

Yesterday, still a little weepy after putting up the Christmas tree and putting new flowers in pots to put on the kid's grave, I receive an email from Ex and the missus, saying 'May the lights shine on'. It was a mass email to everyone and showed the house all dollied up with Christmas lights and swinging things in the garden. It was the most appalling bad taste Christmas lighting I've seen in a while. Blue Reindeers!!!!! Ghastly is the word for it.

Unfortunately it opened the floodgates and Tension copped it in the neck. (So, I used it as an excuse, bite me.)

I'd fought the demons and put the tree up, 2nd time since our son's death. I wasn't stupid enough to think ferretface would send a personal email and mention something personal but a mass email and bad lighting would usually send me into screaming laughter.

It was the words. The inscription on the grave is "The brighter the light, the darker the shadow" so "may the lights shine on" sort of hit me between the eyes. Even as I write it, it sounds so dumb but a weepy mood is a weepy mood and a good Christmas cry is cathartic.

It's just those blue reindeers and remembering the jolly fat twerp in his Santa suit which he did professionally for nearly ten years, the only years he was sober for Christmas Day.

I'll have to keep crying, tears are beneficial for seared retinas. Blue reindeers, if only it had just been the reindeers but the other stuff, lordy I need a bucket.

River, you know me too well

The tree is up, the ornaments are on and it definitely needs to be pinned to the wall. I also need another tree, white, about 3 feet high so come on the pre-Christmas sales. There are two boxes I couldn't fit on this tree. And if you must know, I snivelled a bit. I'll probably snivell again when I'm trying to fit the boxes back in the Christmas chest, it's sort of like a three dimensional Rubick's Cube.
The cat was a great help. Every time I opened the chest she wanted to get off the bed or on the bed. Annoyance level about 12.

I can't believe it's Wednesday

I can't believe it's December and this is all I've done to the Christmas outfit. If I don't get moving and sew it up, I'll be in trouble if anyone lights a candle.

I see another kindy has banned Santa for their party. A load of rubbish, why should any child be offended by a myth and I thought we were supposed to be embracing all cultures. Is this kindergarten, doing Hannukah with the candles, explaining Ramadan, talking about Buddhist worship of all animal life. When the children are young, explain the religion, myths and traditions of every country then we might have a message of peace and goodwill. I was brought up Christian and hated Santa unless the present was a ripper.

The promised rain has arrived but my lawnmower man hasn't which means the grass will be up to my shoulders by next week. The wheel fell off his trailer, true, the BrickOutHouse saw him at the trailer repair factory last night. Just my luck, he was on his way down to cut my lawn or should that be urban jungle enclosure. It's getting to the stage where we'll have to tie a balloon to the cat to see where she is in the grass. I can't hang the doona covers on the line without picking up wildlife. I'm looking lovingly at a tree full of limes but I'm not going through grass that high even for my gin. The Ivy along the front has gone feral and needs a good whacking, earwigs are bunkering down in the letterbox and the black mosquitos are swarming in squadrons the minute the sun goes down. I'm beginning to feel like Sam Neil in Jurassic Park.

My feet are still hurting from two days of pounding the levels of Westfield but "Hello, Jayne, Avatar on special at Big W for $22.98!" it was nothing to numbing the bum for two and a half hours on a hard chair at the doc's yesterday. They stuck 3 needles in the same vein. They asked if I felt nauseous, what, after only 12 hours without food and seeing my life being drained into little jars. Long bus trip to W'field but short trip to my favourite cafe "Hello, Antikva, still none of your favourites in the cake window" and food glorious food, I almost broke into song.

I would have gone straight home but mothershopping had to be done and was. What, me fail!
She won't be getting anything until my feet stop throbbing. There's a new resident at the home, cue Alfred Hitchcock music. She walks, pushing her wheelchair when she's supposed to be in it.
She also walks at night and watches the other residents, creepy. For the second year I am conscripted for Christmas lunch.

I have 3 ornaments on the Christmas tree, I'm doing well.

Not quite a fall

Not quite a fall but a bloody good fright. I caught my foot on the edge of the thingee the workmen haul up to service the elevators and nearly went flying down the down elevator.
I grabbed the handrail, no witnesses of my stupidity and clumsiness and no harm done.
Until last night.

I'm used to my left leg going into strange spasms because of fluid in the spine but last night, the right leg decided to join forces. How hard is it to walk with the big toe sticking straight up in the air? Very hard since I seem to be chronically unbalanced all the time.

Every three hours, another ice pack and somewhere in there I think I went to sleep in the chair.
The pain is (if I'm stupid enough to poke at it again) around the waist area so it must have happened when I grabbed for the handrail. So now there are two bad spinal areas I'm trying to calm down.

Panadol, ice packs and TENS unit for the next couple of days and I could be okay.

It didn't help that I got trapped in the old folks home in the storm yesterday. The downpour was so strong it came down the roof in waves and bypassed the spouting, creating Niagara Falls in the courtyard. Cars parked out the front were up to their bonnets in water and it took me over half an hour to get home by taxi because the railway gates were all down. I did my good deed when I did get home by unhooking the tarp on the ute and letting the water go from his precious baby. Then I dragged in the bins, dragged in the groceries and finally got to sit down.

At least the cat's backed off, it remembered what happened last time it put its nose on the electrodes. Christmas is crap.

On the couch.

Yes, I would like to be lounging around on that couch but it's the other one I mean. The uncomfy one that costs a mint in Psych fees to work out what gone wrong with the jingle bells suddenly turning into Big Ben and rattling the rafters.

48 hours of soul searching and charging myself exhorbitant fees of chocolate chip cookies and I may have it all sorted. The problem is still here but it's my unfortunate job to find a way of dealing with it other than defenestration and burial in the golf course.

l. Tension is a 29 year old child with problems she doesn't want to or is unable to, resolve. She tried a new shrink but I suspect he was straight with her and she went back to the old shrink who is probably buying the island of Hawaii on the profits.

2. My antipathy towards Tension came up about two years ago when she lied about me to the BOH and cause an almighty ruckus in the family and I had to back away. You don't get to do that to me twice.

3. It's his choice to stay with someone he says he waited for and loves. They say love is deaf, dumb and blind but at his age he can't be that shuttered. Although when I look at Brynne and dear 'on the edge of the coffin' Edelstein, I wonder. But he is living her life, her hours, her dramas and as I spent 30 years living other people's lives, I don't want him to waste any more of his.

4. If anything I said made them break up and I see him sitting alone, staring at a big empty in his life, I'd probably open a vein. At the very least I would be heartbroken for him. At most I would hate myself. If my sister did it, well, she's his mother and I could distance myself from the disaster.

5. Why has this blown up to such a major eruption in my life? I've been alone for 10 years and suddenly I have people in the house. One is easy to live with even with 4 cars in the drive and dirty socks procreating in the laundry basket. The other visitor (visitor but would love to live in) is like a giant black hole in my universe. She sheds nothingness like the cat sheds hair and the teen voice in the woman's body sets my inner bitch on scream. She has no boundaries and respects no-one else's.

6. After words on Monday, quiet words, no shouting or abuse, I realize I have to back off and give him space to recover physically and mentally from 12 months of pain. He had another tooth pulled yesterday and the dentist came out while I was paying and offered him some oxygen before he left. He did look a bit pale but was more relieved that it wasn't the two back teeth that have the roots impacted together and needs an oral surgeon for the ripping out of. Last night he went to see Tension for a few hours. The house was so quiet, I'm ashamed to say I was so happy to be sitting there in my old nightie nibbling on the last choc chip cookie.

7. My weight has boomed. As Toby Green once said in an article on bingeing, bulimia and anorexia, "Who are you eating at?" Don't I know the answer to that one. When the great unloved left me, I had two years of freedom to be me and I lost 20 kilograms with the sheer joy of living for me. So I must stop this now before the Christmas sales when I tend to pig out on the half price puddings and mince pies and the sales are so close.

8. My Christmas wish for the loved nephew is for him to find his own place which he has never had. A place for his books, dvds, computer, tv, his cuckoo clock, room for a pony and a 4 car drive. A place to find out who he is, to grow, to feel at ease with being alone and to find out that socks come in pairs if you just fold them together. Oh, and there is no such thing as the 'Underpants fairy' you do have to wash them yourself.