Twenty-three and a half seconds to meltdown

My computer is about to fry itself so I thought I had better get a post up while the posting is still going.  My landline is not fixed even after a visit to Telstra on Tuesday.  I do have a work order number which won't do any good at all unless they're on the doorstep. It was worth the visit to see the frustration on the Telstra drone's face as he tried to access the call centre which is somewhere half way up a mountain in the Hindu Kush.  He finally got through then was put on hold while they traced the work number.  I smiled sweetly and said, "annoying isn't it."  I won't be smiling tomorrow when I hit the joint running.

I was early to  the Home on Tuesday for the Chinese lunch.  I usually see mother in the afternoon and my sister sees her in the morning so how that stupid bitch didn't notice the tremors in mum's arms, from fingertips to shoulder I don't know. She just said she never looks at her, fckn brilliant.
I yelled at carer, nurse and unit manager and demanded it was put in her file immediately. Doc Marvin was in the next day and he yelled louder than I did. Not one word was in the file about the nut job in the other bed not letting mum get any sleep but the tremors were in. Good ole Doc, couldn't do anything about the roomie but he could do something about her doctor and he did.
She was there today, asked two questions, stayed five minutes and left. Some doctor!
The tremors are caused by too much ventolin but he can't drop the dose until her lungs are clear and he's ordered more antibiotics.  Apparently he could be heard even with the office door shut and the new Unit Manager knows what a real doctor can do.  

Doc Marvin was worried because he'd never seen mum look so down. Usually they chat about what she's doing or what dvd she's watching and that's how he assesses her general health. She didn't tell him that half the trouble was not being able to get in touch with me by phone. She feels isolated when she's not feeling well, something I think I've finally got through to stupid bloody sister. She still won't go down for more than half an hour though, can't think of anything to say to mum. 

There'll be things said tomorrow at Telstra.  Five big vans went past the house this morning plus the garbage trucks.  I checked where the bins where and where the phone line was and unless I walked way down the other end of the nature strip with heavy bins then it was going to be hit and miss with the garbage truck catching the line.  So the dvd viewer has fried itself, the computer is going and the phone has gone, so far. To round things out nicely, I couldn't get the lid of the vegemite for breakfast, I can't get the lid off the chutney or the lid off the pickles.  Bright spot was having 10 big Rosellas in the apple tree this morning. I'd put a photo up but I don't want to overload the geriatric CPU. If I don't post, you all know what's happened. 

Apparently the state of the economy is all my fault.

Yes, because I'm obese, old, medically unsound and I have a pension.  There now, you have someone to focus on instead of the shit government currently in power.
1.  When I worked I paid taxes. I still pay tax via the GST.
2.  When I worked, women didn't get superannuation.
3.  When I stopped work, I was helping the shouse rat ex up the corporate ladder.
4.  I raised two kids who paid tax.
5.  Getting old was always going to happen.
6.  Getting fat stopped me from having a nervous breakdown and clogging up the pysch hospitals.
7.  Medically unsound is in the eye of the beholder and her doctor.
8.  When the pension age of 65 was designated as 'the age', the average poor bloody worker was dead by 55. Bastards knew what they were doing even back then.
9.  I've had a crap week and the next person who comes out blaming obese old medically unsound pensioners will get a thump over the head with a large club.
10. Smile, it could be worse, us old obese medically unsound pension demanding fogeys could be shipped off to Manus Island as undesirables.

And the Telstra mongrels have not fixed my landline which has been off for nearly a week. They are aware of the problem, Yea!  I was on my neighbour's phone for 40 minutes waiting for the Peter Sellers Call Centre listening to the most appalling muzak before I heard a human voice.  He took all my details and said he would check details and be right back.  Black holes in the Universe opened and swallowed stars while I waited another 20 minutes. Then a robot asked me if I was satisfied with the help I'd had and could I press a number from zero to one to indicate my pleasure. When I pressed zero, the robot said why wasn't I happy?  Because I was still standing there hanging on to a bloody phone waiting for an answer. The robot hung up. 
My neighbour (no, not hernextdoor) made a cup of coffee and I sat down and knew it was a mistake, I do not do well sitting six inches from the floor.  Getting up gave her the best laugh she'd had all week but I did not fall on my backside, I was too frightened to.
My shoulders are almost right but the left hip took quite a belting in the storm on Thursday night. I should have started this with.....It was a dark and stormy night...because it was when the transformer blew two houses down the street. In the pitch dark I missed the door way and whacked into the door frame as I went for the torch. There were lots of four letter sailor type words and limping, lots of limping.
And because everything was on when the power went off, I had to stay up for it to come back on so I could turn it all off.
I read a book with a torch on my shoulder.  I couldn't see what the candle on the mantle was doing, same as all the others I thought. Not with my luck, the wick had leaned sideways, put a hole in the wax which was melting down the mantle, down my string of gold stars and on to my holograph picture of a wizard and the carpet.  By this stage the four letter vocabulary was exhausted and it was too late to drink Gin.
See, not only obese, medically unsound, old, pensioner but boozer with a foul mouth. I may have just set a new bench mark for entrance to Manus, or Parliament.

Join me in the pain party

I found this and couldn't resist posting it. He hasn't been around much so I'm thinking that Rochester is holed up in a green tree somewhere composing more poetry or singing to the birds. He'd have to sing, there's no room in there for a piano.

I am in pain. It's taken me days to realize why I'm in pain and how stupid it is to do things when I'm old that I didn't even think about when I wasn't.  All those 40 degree days, surely they're over now, but to keep the house cool I would pull all the blinds right down, shut doors to rooms and generally it worked. But at night I would have to get the blind up in my room to open the window. And there is the problem, stupid ex with his heavy hand managed to destroy every spring in all the rollers blinds in the house. I did replace one or two until nobody knew what a roller blind was let alone the spring. 
So I'm standing on tiptoe and rolling up the blinds by hand. Wasn't difficult a few years back but we didn't have too many unholy temperature days in a row and I was taller then. I've shrunk a few inches. Blind in the bedroom is 10 feet long in old money, lounge still has a spring and is 12 feet, hallway, no spring is 8 feet, kitchen, no spring 6 feet, second bedroom, no spring, 8 feet but I just shut that door. The study I fixed up ages ago by putting up drapes and cutting the roller blind to the roller and threading the lace curtain on to that which fitted inside the window.
I've stretched beyond limits, anything and everything that connects my shoulders to my neck and spine. Fortunately I didn't tear anything beyond repair. That would have been real pain so once I figured out the cause it was Panadol every four hours and lots of moaning, snivelling and sobbing.  All those great things one can do aloud when living alone. But I still couldn't work out why, once it calmed down, the pain would grab again. Bingo, don't let a cold fan blow across hurting things since they'll go into spasm and start pain rage all over again.  It's quiet now but I think I've possibly given my liver major damage since I always forget if the four hours since the last pills are actually up.

And to top it off the cat got mugged.  I didn't hear a cat fight or scream but then I had shovelled a couple or more of sleeping pills down. He was covered in filth, not sand when I brushed him down but sandy grease so I presume he hid under the car. I found that out when I was operating on him on my white doona cover but brave little lamb let me cut away the fur to see the damage. Well, something with a very big gob put two fangs into his shoulder and two directly opposite under his armpit ? legpit ? I think the chomp on the bone hurt more than anything else and the wounds are clean. He's had his calming water brushed into his fur and his calming drops in food and now he's grounded. He can go out in the morning but night time is barred, consequently after all my gentle treatment, he's not speaking to me. 

Now a whine about hernextdoor and her concept of personal space. I rarely get inside her front door, usually I'm borrowing something from husband's realm in the garage and dressed in my household rags and looking like a bag lady. Still, this morning I'd been up, fed the beast, put the washing machine on which didn't go on, power outage so I went back to bed and warmed up the hurting back. I heard the front gate creak, which is why I don't oil it, cheap alarm system. I thought it probably was the BOH and some one did come in the back door, that's right in the back door through the lounge to the light switch, not put her hand round the open back door and try the outside light switch but through my house. She didn't want to disturb me, she says. If I had done that to her she would have had me on trespass charges.  Karma's a bitch, she has an all electric house and the electricity didn't come back on until midday and it had been off since 2 a.m.. I hope she was gasping for a cuppa and had a cold shower.

The weather is so delightful...not

 My dear blogmates, I've been thinking of you baking all day and I think you should all come to my place for a pool party. My pilot will pick you up and take you home. You'll be in no condition to drive or fly yourself.

 I've had the pool room cleaned and set up for afternoon tea, dinner and a little supper.

 Don't bring a thing. I've got the swim togs all sorted for our sizes, shapes and whatever.

 And of course, our Andrew, you know how he likes to put on a show. Memo to self, make sure he leaves the real and expensive ruby behind when he leaves.

 Oh, darlings, Pink Champagne is sooo last century. We're having Blanc de Bleu, to match the pool of course.

 And there'll be ice-cream. I've had the $1,000.00 Golden Sundaes flown in from Manhatten.

And there'll be cakes. They have to be petite cakes, after a few glasses of Blanc de Bleu, you elegant lot always have trouble feeding your faces.
Get ready, there'll be a knock on the door any moment now.
Oh, gosh, we'll have fun.

No, I didn't think these up but I could have

Now this is an ace idea except for the grass growing up between the rocks and looks like it might need weeding which is not in my job description. But around the water meter, great, since S.E.Water practically buried the Tap and meter last time hernextdoor's water pipe burst. Probably would look neat hanging off the back of the Kombi, the VW and the Falcon.

 I immediately thought of River when I saw this. I know you love bright colours and have a small garden but just right for this caterpillar. I'm not sure about glow in the dark paint for this, kind of creepy/spooky but wow for Halloween.

 Now Elephant's Child, this is definitely ours. It has steps, canopy, lanterns aromatherapy candles and bubbles. I don't see a stubby holder though, still if we can afford this, we can afford the butler bringing out the Bombay Sapphire and in the good crystal glasses. No champagne, enough bubbles in the spa and I get giggly and drownable on champagne.

And for all four of us, the garden retreat for the reading of books, gossiping, pinning on Pinterest, blogging and eating cake, especially eating cake. This would sit neatly between my apple tree and lemon tree. I can't tell you how badly I want this garden delight and everything in it. I believe the spa would go beside it and we could wander back and forth, the forth would probably be very zigzag so the glow in the dark rocks will come in handy.
And since how government thinks that pensioners are on a good wicket, we should be able to afford the lot.
Up yours Abbott!

Just a little hate in the heat

There is no way to say anything pleasant about this vile Federal government we have been landed with.
In one breath they rant on about dole bludgers and in the next they are putting thousands of workers on the scrap heap.
They are dumping tonnes of crap on the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park for a harbour to take ships big enough to haul off the coal which they say is not causing "What Climate Change".
Now they are trying to get World Heritage listing of forests in Tasmania changed so they can let the loggers back in. But it's okay they're giving Cadbury's 16 million bucks to boost tourism so Tassie won't lose out.
And the State governments aren't much better.  Shark culling, really brilliant. So far only small and may I say, not to bright, sharks have been caught and released. The sharks they have shot, they've taken out to sea and dumped. Oh, come on down, really big sharks and take the bait.
Our ABC, the one we pay for is coming in for a belting for being biased in their reporting of what this government is doing. I can't see how they can say that when they bloody well won't tell the people anything about anything they are doing. We can't even call ourselves mushrooms since they won't even feed us bullshit. 
Okay so by-election coming up in Kevvie's seat of Griffiths (see that Julie Bishop, even I can get it right) and I feel for the Liberal who believes he can just walk off with the prize. People get out there and let Abbott know he'd better start looking at what's under his nose, a great big dislike and it's growing.

One of THOSE weeks

This is what I looked like this morning, all empty with hair.  Three ice packs last night to stop the legs going into spasms, lots of groaning and swearing when I had the legs fixed, the back went. The knee is swollen from the bus steps and trying to get into new taxis that have a board too high to slide the feet inside. It's now lift and swing including the two bags I'm usually carrying. Put having to use the gnome sized toilets at Southland into the mix plus up and down and up and down for things mother wanted done, I should have know to whack on the ice as soon as I staggered in the back door. 
But my diabetes and cholesterol are under control considering what a mess they were this time last year. Triglicerides are up but I've been  missing my Omega-3 fish oil a bit so now it's one a day for the next 6 months to see if it makes a difference. That and exercise which doesn't figure a lot in my life but we are now trying a third fluid tablet to help the legs and feet. The other two were too strong and made me feel very unwell after 3 or 4 days. My kidneys are fine though. We just won't talk about the elephant in the room which is me.
So now it's February and it's been a year since I heard from my eldest granddaughter. I presume she made it back from Europe okay. Next week she will  be, if I've done my sums right, 21 years old. I still remember every minute of the day she was born like it was yesterday.  I suppose I will have to email her other grandparents and find out what they are doing for her birthday, down here or in Queensland. There's no way I will contact her Queen Bitch of the Universe of a mother to ask. I don't usually hold a grudge but with her, the grudging will be forever. It doesn't matter that I know why she did what she did, a grudge is the least I can do when I'm not the type to hit someone over the head with a blunt object. I don't talk to her, I don't think about her, she does not exist in my world, she exists only in my grudging.
She is why I don't keep in touch with my girls, it only gets them into trouble. They email or ring when they can so I never push them. They know where I live, I've let them go and they've come back, they always will.