The demo was cancelled.

I was half way through Southland carrying Ma's worldly goods on my back, as usual, when she called and said the demo was cancelled so I didn't need to come. Obviously someone at The Body Shop did their homework and found out the home was 'high care'.

Then the rains came.

Well it was entertaining, the thunderstorm and resident mix.
Norman going round pulling all the curtains to stop the lightning coming in to get him and Eva pulling all the curtains to keep the thunder out.

Then the lights went out.

Some noticed, most didn't probably because all the curtains were shut. The lights came back on, flickered and went off, came back on. The last time it rained like this the ceiling fell in so mother kept her eyes on the roof.
The road out the front has a habit of flooding in a storm so there was a rush to get the cars re-parked. The last time two cars got caught with water in the engines. It's the huge gumtree that's blocking the drains but the Council says no to taking it out.
The escapee did it again. Hopped the fence early in the morning and was off. He doesn't know where he's going but he knows he's going.

Isn't this just typical Melbourne Show and school holiday weather?
I asked the BOH if he remembered me taking them to the Show. He said he didn't remember much except that I had harnessed them like a horse. Que? Light dawns as I cast my mind back and I was much better at lateral thinking in those days, I used the dogs' leashes and clipped them to the back of their belts. For some reason he thought that was worse. I thought it was brilliant.
He then brought up a list of complaints about his childhood clothing being 'daggy'. I reminded him that his mother did dress him at times, most notably for his kindy photo. The first and only time she did anything remotely motherish during his school years. Red skivvy, jeans and a mohair jumper that mum had knitted, shame his mother put it on inside out and we could see all the seams in the photo. He's currently hunting for the photo so he can have a piece of his mother.

I hated going to the Show. I never had a good time ever. Yesterday with it's strong wind reminded me of horse/pig/sheep/goat odour and straw in the eyes. The boys weren't all that interested and the BOH with his farming blood would nearly upchuck if he got too close to any animal that smelled and usually found the only horse/pig/sheep/goat pile of crap and stood in it.
I suppose the fondest memory was telling son to watch the horse. He said, "what horse?" and turned around and nearly disappeared up the back end of the biggest draught horse I've ever seen. That learned him to listen to his mother. Thank Ceres, they were never much interested in agriculture.

Hard rubbish and more rubbish

Not a lot of good pickings around this year and boo-hiss to the neighbour who put out what looked like a nice glass topped patio table then loaded it with all their other rubbish. I nearly had the BOH ready to nick round the corner with the torch and drag it home when we copped a thunderstorm. Heavy rain meant the pink heart shape fluffy stool on legs would have been a soppy mess and heading for mouldville and I really wanted to give it to his girlfriend for Christmas or a farewell present.

There wasn't much on my nature strip, 3 television sets large, 1 tiny 6" black and white which broke my heart to dump because I bought it with my very own earnings, microwave which decided not to turn off except at the wall switch, 1 computer screen and a 40 year old refrigerator with the doors off as per instructions. That went in the first hour, mould and all. I am such a pack rat that the BOH practically had to wrench the 3 wheel washing trolley out of my hand but it still had 3 good wheels and I'm sure at some stage we'd have found another wheel. Besides the new one isn't as strong and I bet it won't last 25 years. He was eyeing off the garden gnomes but I promised mum I'd put them in my garden, they can go when she does.

I haven't posted much, err, not at all. Life has been slightly difficult. Visits to the home have become too much like a walk down memory lane. Four years of crazy mother multiplied by 6 new residents have had me clawing at the windows to get out. Mother, of course, doesn't remember the four years at all. So I have been mistaken for a African male nurse and a husband of one newby. Said husband is about 98, hunchbacked and 3'6". One of sister's patients came in and she said, lovely lady, go and talk to her. A bit hard since she arrived on a Friday, had a stroke at the dinner table on Saturday and the funeral has come and gone. Another newby is Lennie who is constantly on the look out for a pair of scissors or a knife to cut himself out of his wheelchair. And the resident escape artist/full moon strangler managed to find a wooden stake and a hammer that the builders had missed. There was some fancy talking to get those away from him.

I'm not ridiculing them, I'm letting you all know what you're in for. It's giving me anxiety attacks and I like to share my hysteria. My coping mechanisms of eating, gambling and spending are in freefall. I wasn't well yesterday, the sun was streaming in over the bed, I was warm and I was relaxing but I could hear my father's voice, "Your mother needs you". Crap, says I, but the voice kept on and on until I was ready to tell him to stuff his harp in his mouth. I get up, dress, get a cab and she's in bed. Bad for her, good for me because I didn't have to cope with "The Others". She'd had a crippling attack of rheumatoid arthritis in the knee and was in severe pain but glad to see me. My father's photo over the bed had a stern look. He never does this to my sister, just me. Damn deathbed promises to look after the old bat.

I think I might go down tomorrow just to see how the woman from "The body shop" copes with a demo of their products. I don't think she's done her homework about the residents unless she has a degree in Doolally.

You're never too old or stupid

What do you do with a 90-year-old who gets breath tested and blows a reading of 0.230?
The police charged her with high range drink driving.

1. She's 90!
2. She can still drive!
3. She can still find the car and turn the ignition!
4. She has enough breath to test!

I know grown men that couldn't do what she just did.

Just watch the highway at Bateman's Bay on a Friday night. Look for a weaving bicycle.

Time, I need more time.

It's not my design but I have everything ready to make it, except time and brain function.
This blog used to be full of science posts and I know there are at least four drafts that I haven't whipped into shape because my brain won't work. My jewellery isn't working because I don't have a work room anymore so trying to separate glass (expensive) from plastic (not) beads continues on the lounge floor, tables and soon I'll resort to the ironing board.

After the Home visit yesterday, I left with my sanity hanging by a thread. No, I am not patient with the residents when I'm trying to explain things to mother. The full moon was four days ago so you'd think the effects would have worn off by now but they're still all doolally. It's not the same place as it was when mum went there. Staff has changed and the new are good but agency staff didn't give mum her pain medication at 7.30 a.m., two days running it was 10.00 a.m.
The activities staff spend half their time hunting down the escapees instead of doing activities but that's a bit hard when my mother is the only one who can help with the cooking and the craft. It's crazy that the old girl has become the smartest one in the place. To the extent that she is being mobbed by oldies who like her and the weekend escapes to the Chapel room to make her cards in peace and quiet can't come round soon enough.

I never thought I'd say I'd miss the happy place it was but there were enough on the ball to have a laugh but now it's a drag to walk in the door. It's a drag to be in my own house which isn't quite mine anymore. I keep looking at the washing on every chair, my brain says put it away but the body wants to sit down and cry. My nephew's been here a year, he's nice but he's here and I would truly love him to have his own place with his own things around including every piece of clothing and every sock but he doesn't earn enough to get a bond, 6 months rent, utilities put on or find rent every week.

So, how's the diabetes going? Badly.
So, how's the weight loss going? Badly.
So, how's the walking every day going? Badly.
So, how's the depression going? It's good, really good, ramping up to a full blown open a vein head in the gas oven attack and the only way out is to eat my way through.
So, how's the diet going? Baaaaaaaaaaaaaadly.

Space eye

So you're floating around Earth at about 17,000 mph and between 173 and 286 miles up on the International Space Station and you're taking snaps.

And what snaps! This is the Viedma Glacier part of the ice fields of Patagonia. It covers 610 square miles and is one and a quarter miles wide at the tip where it flowly into Lake Viedma.

The ice fields are the largest mass of ice in the Southern Hemisphere, covering 35,000 square miles.

Working for the Home

I do these stupid things so I don't have to help on the fund raising days when I'd rather sit and eat the food.
I've been putting cameos in little lockets and brooches and fiddling with chains and bails and my hands don't work like they used to.
And I haven't even started the glueing stage which is a whole other world of frustration and fingers glued together.
Dumped the 5 minute Araldyte, it takes longer than that to put an 8x6mm cameo in the setting.

The old dears are raising funds to buy a coffee machine.
I hope you lot aren't rolling round the floor laughing, it was bad enough me doing that.
They want it for the days when it's too cold to go to the coffee shop.
I don't know whose idea it was but I have a feeling it was my mother and if she thinks I'm going to train as a barista, she can think again.

It's one of those nice ideas that are going to be hell to make work. The staff have already taken the kettle out of the activities room since one of the residents likes to take it to his room. The microwave is so high up, the short visitors have to ask the tall ones for help. Not to mention what will happen to the cappuccino cups. I have taken so many cups down there and believe me, they have a half life of about 2 days before disappearing into the ether.
Harris Scarffe had lovely pink rose mugs on special this week so I bought them for mother but she was only allowed one and I've taken the rest hostage. When they break that one, I'll take down another.

Stupid weather forecasters made me miss the sausage sizzle today. What happened to cold with rain? It would have been lovely in the courtyard, dodging wheelchairs and sauce bottles. Instead I stayed home and spend loads of her money on card making thingies. She has to get started on Christmas, it is September you know.

Which card are you?

You are The High Priestess

Science, Wisdom, Knowledge, Education.

The High Priestess is the card of knowledge, instinctual, supernatural, secret knowledge. She holds scrolls of arcane information that she might, or might not reveal to you. The moon crown on her head as well as the crescent by her foot indicates her willingness to illuminate what you otherwise might not see, reveal the secrets you need to know. The High Priestess is also associated with the moon however and can also indicate change or fluxuation, particularily when it comes to your moods.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Kristina Logan "The Dot Queen"

She loves her dotted glass beads, dotting with a shaped glass rod instead of glass stringers so that she can be precise. After each dot is placed she starts melting them at the same rate before adding the next layer and finally adding transparent dots on top of the opaque dots. The surface tension squeezes the dots into diamonds and squares according to how tightly spaced the original dots and transparent glass were placed.

But she doesn't just use the beads for necklaces, in her hands they can become anything. The Amber tea pot is 16.5 x 16.5 x 9.5 cm and is one of a series.

And don't the dotty beads look gorgeous as candlesticks. You can see here the surface dotted beads and the worked dots under transparent glass.

The large green bead in the 3rd row down is her famous cactus bead. Every dot of glass positioned equally across the surface. I couldn't scan the photograph of her work bench but I was happy to see I'm not the only person who works in a 2 foot square space in the middle of a room full of equipment.

Look into my eye!

I used to make up my eyes like this, now there's too many wrinkles to get that youthful dewy look. Not to mention getting up close and personal with a hand mirror which usually means a poke in the eye at some stage.
But strike another off the "to do" list. I had my eyes tested today and I have healthy eyes.
No change in the long sight and only a slight change in short sight as in, hold the book 20 centimetres further away.
They do a retinal scan now which they keep as a record to check with the one I'll have every year. Very strange looking at a photo of the inside of my eyeball. Lovely clear veins, nothing bad near the macular and no floating bits anywhere.
No glaucoma either.
Very fuzzy sight for about 3 hours afterwards which made eating lunch hilarious and curiously made getting up the bus steps easier, for once I didn't trip.
So much for Diabetes Educator predicting gangrene for the feet and approaching blindness.

I will only post link

"It is a big change for the 5ft 2in mother, who requires a mobility scooter to go shopping and wears XXXXXXXL.

Last Christmas she feasted on two 25lb turkeys, two maple-glazed hams, 15lbs of potatoes (10lbs roast, 5lbs mashed), five loaves of bread, five pounds of herb stuffing, four pints of gravy, four pints of cranberry dressing and an astonishing 20lbs of vegetables."

If you can stand it read the rest but not if you've just eaten.