This image is from Finnish Lapland, you know the reindeers, snow, snow and more snow interspersed with ice and snow. It comes down so hard and long that the trees start looking like this, straight out of that Ice World of StarWars, alien giants. I think they dumped a young James T. Kirk on an ice world so snow and ice equals punishment, on the other hand, Hawaii is for lovely people like me, all sweetness and light. Finnish Lapland is for family members who are giving me the irrits and for once it isn't my mother.
Thank the blessed IT goddess who invented iPads and zombie games. It's keeping her amused in between read Pride and Prejudice, page l40 now. It can catch you out if you aren't careful. Sister was playing with the icons, (something she said mother would never master) and she took her own photo, bwaahahahhahahha. Up close and personal with her wrinkles, nose hair and no chin. I did her a favour and put it in the garbage bin along with mine, grey hair, wrinkles and 3 chins.
Friday is June and then it's 8 weeks until himbo and dimbo welcome the bambimbo. If my sister says one more time that everything will work out, just wait and see then I will have to commit fratricide or should that be imbecilacide? That sounds like something that would work on Abbott.
Back to sister who thinks dimbo's parents should build them a granny flat in their large backyard.....in EIGHT BLOODY WEEKS!!!!!!! They need to get away from parents, aunts and grannies and start living their own lives.
Which brings me to shovel bashing old blokes who think dole bludgers should be sent to WA to get jobs in the mines. Nephew is not on the dole for a start. I really went off trying to tell this idiot how much it cost to get to WA, to live there, to even get a home there, never mind trying to get their families there (don't believe all you see in those mining ads) and then get a job interview hopefully to then get a job. I hope the old fool watched the news last night to see how many Victorians suddenly lost their jobs yesterday. Pardon the rant, I don't usually do Politics and stuff but according to ACA and 7.30, dole bludgers go to Byron Bay and live off maryjane and bananas and too much of one or the other causes street fights. So frustrating dealing with idiots.
Elephant's Child, be a dear and nick over to Parl House and belt Abbott with a shovel, we'll all feel so much better. Come to think of it give one to Hockey, a passing blow to Rudd and mild slap to Jules to get her game up. Honestly watching Canberra is like watching 6 trainwrecks going to happen and trying to decide which one would be the most fun.
And I need my $250 carbon tax money, I overspent on chocolate tranquilizers.
This is me contemplating a family massacre if only I could get away with it.
The BOH came home with smile and I'm thinking, they've finallly found a house, unit, tent, anything to live in.
A smile can generate such hope.
And then he says he's bought a bike to ride to work to save money and lose weight!!
It's the middle of fecking winter, okay not quite, just feels like it, it's pouring rain outside and the wind chill would do Everest justice.
His mother thinks it's a grand idea because he is getting a bit big. He isn't living with her and she's not going to worry about greasy roads and oncoming traffic and he hasn't ridden a bike since he was 16.
Why didn't he just hire an exercise bike, put it in the carport where he could ride for a couple of hours in the freezing wind but not worry about actually setting wheel upon road?
Because that would be easy and safe.
I haven't seen the bike yet, he hasn't ridden to work yet but he has a helmet.
Here's another image from the Haarbergs from 9,000 feet above Iceland. We could do a "What is it?", no? Well the big white bit at the bottom is Langjkull glacier and the rest are small melt water streams. Please for full greatness, do the clicky thing. I have a wide screen monitor so I turned the image clockwise and it makes a fabulous desktop wallpaper.
I'm back from a visit to the Home. The Accreditation people said they had to take down the photo of the escapee from the front of the door for his privacy but they were able to leave one on the inside of the door. Didn't do much good today when he was literally plastered to the glass door with two people inside wanting out and two outside wanting in. The guy outside with me was a newby and didn't know not to open the door, fortunately people inside could see the photo. I knocked on the admin window and it took three people to peel him off the door and cart him off to the office. New guy said why didn't they put a notice on the outside as well.
Mother extremely happy with iPad, keeps her off the phone to me.
Jack Cook from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Howard Perlman of USGS made this image of Earth without its water covering. The oceans cover about 70% of the surface but they're shallow compared to the Earth's radius.
That blue spot is made up of all the water and is about 700 kms in radius, less than half the radius of our moon. It doesn't show water that may be trapped beneath the surface and research is still in progress to find out how this much water came to be on Earth in the first place.
Spooky!
This image was taken by the husband and wife team of Erlend and Orsolya Haarberg at the hot springs of Hveravellir, Iceland. The pink object is not the starship Enterprise but a lenticular cloud and to find out more go to our favourite cloud site and enjoy. The Harbeergs travelled all over Iceland and on a clear day took to the sky to photograph the land from above, sights we'd never get to see. When I'm lost for words, I'll post their photographs instead.
Mothers' Day, freezing, stayed in bed and considered myself lucky to find a tin of fruit pastilles, the kind that are covered in cornflour so everyone knows what you've been eating.
Today I saw my mother, never see her on Mothers Day, besides freezing. My brand new taxi card would not work so I had to pay full price. Earlier on my Myki wouldn't work, again. So now two more phone calls to moronic companies who can't keep their software working or get it to work.
Mother, on the other hand, is finding it easy to use her new iPad. It came with 6 free books and she's up to page 126 of Pride and Prejudice so I won't have to worry about topping up with books immediately. She finds it better than the mobile phone because of the size and she can't break the buttons off because of the touch screen. She did ask why parts of it were cloudy and hard to read so I pulled out a hanky and wiped the fingerprints off the screen.
I've mentioned the Home's escapee before but today it was my turn for the vicious little creep's attack. He threatened me but I don't have a witness because both of the other residents are slightly a lot deaf. They could see him at the back of me but couldn't hear and neither did they see him shove a plastic plate to my neck. Then he walked around in front to my mother and I thought if he touches her, I'll deck him but she's used to handling him and I could see his eyes change as Ma talked quietly to him. I didn't move when he was near me, you can't, any aggressive move makes him worse. I did report it but not on paper but I am the fourth person he's gone for lately. At least I wasn't physically grabbed but the others have been. I'll be seeing the DON at the end of the week and telling her what happened. None of the old ducks should have to watch their backs when he's around and my mother shouldn't have to the one in the front line fending off his aggressiveness when the others can't.
Happy Elephant's Child who loves the cold, a minus five degrees in Canberra this morning. Please don't move south, I couldn't handle a minus anything.
I loved the ABC's programme of The Diamond Queen. Need I mention the jools? But I was impressed by the younger mob, even Beatrice and Eugenie. William and Harry speak straight, plain English without the uppercrust plum stuck in their throat that Daddy Wales is cursed with. Edward, I liked as well but "air miles Andy" looks and sounds like a buffoon. I think we can give cudos here for the Duchess of York who has done most of the upbringing of his daughters even if it does look at times as though they can't hold their booze like daddy.
I have at last finished my night time reading of The Three Emperors, a weighty tome that tells the behind the public view of George V, Wilhelm of Germany and Nicholas of Russia. Willly was a handy bogeyman for the British and American public to blame for the First World War but he lost control of his throne and country the moment the Generals declared war. George lived the rest of his life with the guilt of not saving the Czar and his family. But what struck me most was the fact that all three were uneducated and unfit to govern a country let alone reign supreme although George didn't have the power the other two did. Bedtime reading now is the relationships between 3 queens and their daughters, Catherine of Aragon/England, Marie Antoinette of Austria/France and Victoria of England/Germany. I try not to read anything exciting before sleep otherwise I don't, I can't put down a mystery thriller so I read those outside the bedroom.
Well, I think I've mouthed off enough to give Lord Rochester a run for his money and I need food and the last pastille, raspberry.
In case you've been in a cave somewhere, it was the big supermoon weekend with the moon closest to the earth for yonks but I decided to put up a photo of the great cat goddess instead.
The moon didn't do me any good at all.
Mother started on new tablets for nerve pain and managed to get 8 of the 10 minor side effects in 24 hours. So on Saturday, I'm at the computer with landline for the Home on one side and mobile for sister at work on the other. On Sunday I could barely move for the stiffness in all the joints, tension just a day of tension and not a hidden chocolate bar in the house. Of course, the old girl has come through again, the only damage was a mobile phone without credits because she kept trying to call me and couldn't remember where the buttons were.
So, in a foul mood, Monday is get credits for the phone day and put up with the crazies from the full moon. That's not a myth either. I decided that I would take my time, it's time I didn't rush around for her but take it slowly for me. That didn't happen either. It goes like this, suddenly in the middle of LOLcats, I look at the time, late and take it slowly but not this late. Grab underwear, put on bras but decide to go to the loo and put knickers on after. Sit on loo, decide to put knickers on while I'm there since I had them in my hands. Can't do it, take off slippers first, one foot in knickers and picture falls off the wall, shattering glass in all directions. Dilema, where to put slipperless feet while pulling up knickers or check knickerless bum for splinters. No problem there since that side had the very large shards of glass which would have sliced bum right off.
Knickers half way up and BOH arrives home. Asks if I'm all right, must have heard me swearing like a sailor tangled in a ratline and when I say yes but shut your eyes, I have no clothes on, he leaves.
I'm bleeding and he leaves when I just wanted to hop to the bedroom for a dressing gown. When I call him later, he thought I was just joking. MEN!!!!! Do you know how hard it is to hold a mirror and torch in one hand while fishing for glass with the other? Damn hard. I did find the tiny slice of glass and it must have been the tiniest piece of the entire smash and it slipped out of my fingers on to the rug. Whack a bandage on the foot and then use the torch to find the sliver before I stand on it again. Mission accomplished. It was tiny and shining a torch along the floor is the only way to find glass or a dropped diamond, your lesson for the day. I was now so late I had to leave the blood on the carpet until I got home but I did sweep up the glass while remembering Bruce Willis picking great lumps of glass out of his feet in 'Die Hard'.
Now according to my stars, the full moon was to usher in great changes in my housing situation, bollocks, one broken picture frame does not a change make. BOH and dimbo still looking for a place to live. I had hopes that he might do better by himself until I unpacked his kitbag still loaded with dead socks from Australia Day trip to Albury. Underneath the kitbag was 3 layers of dead socks and jocks prior to Australia Day trip. I only looked because he actually brought out a basket of laundry and put in on the washing machine and I knew he must have had more crap than that.
I threw the kitbag on the bed, emptied it, folded up the sleeping bag to put back and wondered what to do with the Crocodile Dundee size knife in lovely carry sheath. I left it on the bed and checked if there were any more dead clothes in the kitbag, no, just car parts he'd collected and forgotten were there. So he didn't know the knife/machete was in the bag, couldn't remember where he'd put it and had no idea there were car parts in the zip pouch either. I guess he was too busy playing with the furry black foot long spider he'd bought on the internet. He thought it was smaller. It's neat, you hang it on the door handle, it sits on the floor, you clap your hands and the bloody thing shoots up the hanging string, spidey legs spinning and green eyes flashing. He hasn't forgotten where that is.
I repeat, when this child arrives, I am an interested onlooker. The child has grandparents and I'm not them, thank the great Cat Goddess.
