MY FEET HURT UP TO MY FINGERS

This is mine, mine, all mine. The actual gem isn't as brilliantly flashy as this but more of a delicate pansy shading. I'll probably have it set with very dark amethysts or black Russian diamonds to give it the look of a garden pansy. Yes, I'll do that immediately I win Tattslotto.

I was right about the redback spider. Apparently the freak weather conditions have brought a plague of creatures including the redbacks. The National Pest Control said there hasn't been a redback plague like this in 15 years. Wasps that usually arrive in November and December, didn't turn up until February but around these parts didn't arrive at all. Termites are two months later but in higher numbers.

I didn't watch the 4 Corners programme on the child chocolate slaves last night, I just couldn't handle more children being exploited by shitful adults. I should have watched because I wanted to know if they're using children as cheap labour or because the adults are debilitated by AIDS.

I wished I hadn't read the article in the paper on Sunday about porkers (not me, real pigs). I don't get these conceptual artists but this woman, can't remember name and feet too sore to get up and get the article, but she followed a pig from slaughter to end product and that wasn't just food. The animal ends up every where, from paint brushes to beauty products AND licorice.

I can't believe it, my favourite nosh of chocolate covered licorice is now forbidden to me. Could I just bite it and not get a vision of child slavery and Babe? No, damn it. Sometimes ignorance is bliss and licorice.

Why is it that looking at the distance on a map and actually walking it are two different things?
20 minute walk to bus stop, get out at Nepean Highway and walk through three shops on the way to Southland which seemed to get further and further away the more I walked. Finally I made it then there were steps but at the top was a cafe and booze. It did taste lovely. Then I got to walk all over Southland for mother's things and fecking cat food but only because it was on special, 30 cans yesterday and another 30 on Thursday should see it not starve for a week or two. By the time I staggered into the home, I could barely talk for pain so mother talked for me.

So walk again to the PO agency before the rain today. I haven't been to the bakery since sometime in January and she made me the best Capuccino I've had since then. The cocoa covered foam was at least 2cm above the cup. I was looking forward to drinking it until the wind whipped up and I was wearing it, fortunately I was quick enough to save the bag with the apple cake in it. Thanks to River, I put in the film from my camera which is a total mystery to me. I've had it in there for a year and since I didn't go anywhere, what's on it? Pick up registered mail and stagger home to find the cat sitting accusingly at its bowl. I wasn't gone that long and it ate before I left, walking stomach.

The Hun on Sunday had a recipe for Bailey's Irish Cream cupcakes with BIC icing, I'm filing that with my recipe for Bailey's fudge but tonight I think I'll just drink it until it flows down to the feet.

METRO GO HOME

You know, I can't remember which government decided it would be good for all of us to privatize public utilities. It could have been Lib or Lab but from now on I'm voting Green or a drover's dog, whichever looks more appealing.

Metro, a french company (small f, I know what I'm doing) has control of transport but I believe the government still supplies the infrastructure. HighRiser will tell me if I'm wrong. So why in the bloody hell did they sell anything at all? PUBLIC TRANSPORT FOR TRANSPORTING THE PUBLIC AND IN SOME SORT OF COMFORT. How hard could that be? More carriages, no delays, more seating (the moron that came up with the suggestion to take out the seats for more strap hanging should be tied to the front of a train for a week) keeping to the timetable and more about the seats, why should I have to sit with my knees in some blokes crotch because the seats are too close. If they're short of carriages, then just organise some cattle trucks, it couldn't possibly be more uncomfortable.

Have you guessed already that I travelled on a Metro train yesterday? I would have avoided that except that I was meeting with the lovely Muriels and their gorgeous daughter Charlotte and after exchanging emails for 5 years I wasn't going to miss that.
The 9.09 turned up at 9.18 and more and more people squashed into that train the closer we got to the city. I stood for 40 minutes, holding on, bent into a corner so that if the train lurched then I wouldn't smash my spine on the iron rail behind me.

The journey home wasn't much better. The carriage was full of MacKinnon High students and to their courtesy of offering me a seat, I thank them. Unfortunately by this time I needed to have a little more room to try and move my kneecaps back where they should be so I declined until there was a an aisle seat where I could collapse the legs.

My suggestion is that all government ministers be made to ride the rails at peak hour for the time of one week, every year they are in office.

My other suggestion is that Metro executives should be made to ride the rails underneath the train at all times.

As for Myki, they'll have to pay me to use it. After seeing the surging tide, I can't see where swiping a card is going to do anything except slow the whole system down. My only good report was that my all day concession ticket allowed me to ride two trains and three buses for $5.

As for the Muriels, a delight to meet them and they just love Melbourne but I don't think they rode on a train.

CAKE MAKING 101

Another lesson in the womanly art of housekeeping and family feeding.

The first thing one learns about cake making is that there are cake makers and cake fakers.
Cake fakers have Sara Lee in the freezer at all times.
Except for me who will eat the things frozen when I'm on a sweet bender.

Cake bakers turn out divine confections without putting on an apron. They open cook books just to do a quick refresh and then the brain does a re-boot and memory takes over. Scones rise, sponges rise, cupcakes are iced without the cat being splattered two rooms away and some even make bread.

I haven't baked a cake in five years but after reading the nutrition labels on so-called healthy options, I decided to be a cake maker again and here are my lessons in baking.

1. Don't be tempted to buy homebrand mixed fruit. You'll find it has 10 pieces of minute lemon peel and the rest of the fruit would have to be analysed by a CSI unit. Don't buy already chopped dates, you can't identify chopped fruit from chopped anything else that got in the way.

2. If you do buy the cheap crap, liberally douse it with as much sherry as it takes to make the fruit look like fruit and the smell creeping out of the kitchen is divine.

3. Read the recipe first. I know, just one of those silly rules that cake makers swear by but it does remind you to buy the ingredients that you actually will need. Trying to estimate how much liquid to put in to equate to a can of crushed pineapple which you knew you needed last shopping day but couldn't remember what for. Make sure you have flour. Mixing everything that's left in the jars might work or not. I'll let you know later.

4. Even if you never think you'll bake a cake ever again, buy a flour sifter, just in case. I know Nigella doesn't like sifting flour either but I'll be hanged if I'll get out the food processor to do it, not when I know she's got slaves to wash it and put it away after. She also uses it to get the lumps out of icing sugar but, but those lumps make the icing look so interesting.

5. So you have two bottles of vanilla extract. Make sure you tip the almost empty one into the mixture and not waste the full one. Make sure you have the spices. It's all very well to keep them in brown bottles away from sunlight but the bottles don't cry out in the wilderness of the pantry, "I'M EMPTY". You find that out the hard way but never mind the vanilla and sherry will make up for that. I did have sugar but it's been so long since I filled the sugar bowl I practically had to use the rolling pin to break it up. Dear old rolling pin, I've had it since my kitchen tea, we didn't have male strippers and hangovers before the wedding in my day.

6. Get out the proper sized cake tin. The recipe says an 8 inch round but it was too far back in the cupboard so I'm using a 10 inch square. It's okay, the cake will look flatter but bigger in the way guys stuff socks in their jocks except the cake will taste loads better.
Don't forget to line the tin with greased paper then a layer of baking paper or you can wing it and cut the paper out of the cake later.

7. Light the oven before you start all this, that way you won't forget and still be salivating at midnight when you finally check for a flame because something doesn't seem right. Don't take any notice of cooking times, remember you're using a 10 inch instead of an 8 inch tin and don't rely on the kitchen clock either, the battery dropped dead last week.

8. Never tell you mother at the nursing home that you're making a cake. She'll want a piece and a piece for all her friends and I won't be responsible for what happens after all those oldies ingest cake containing dates, booze and wholemeal flour. I'm sure Jane will agree with me.

I think I'll go over to Cake Wrecks and feel better about myself or I'll have an early meal and have warm cake with ice-cream on top. That's what I call nutritious.

ERUPTION AND THE NORTHERN LIGHTS

Meanwhile back at the volcano which was joined by a brilliant display of the Northern Lights.
Already the papers are reporting that the ash cloud wasn't as bad and that flights should have continued and/or re-commenced much earlier.

If you want to know what happens when a jet flies through an ash cloud then go here
and decide whether it was better to be safe than sorry. This was only one jet but if flights had gone ahead regardless, think of how many planes would have been in the air and calculate the odds on how many would have been downed.

THE SEASON OF SPIDERS

Perhaps I should have said the year of spiders. I've noticed the absence of blowflies and mosquitos this year as well as being able to walk without those little bush flies going up one's nose. But the variety of spiders seen around the house is out of the ordinary.

The latest sighting of a black body and scuttling legs was on the top of the screen door at the front of the house. Unfortunately it was right where the slidey thing is to hold the door open but I was careful with the fingers.
It had grown quite big in the last week along with the web from which protruded the legs (no body) of its departed mate, eaten when his duty was done. Mrs. Black and getting larger had a familiar shape and on Thursday I had a good look at the big red stripe on her back.
Now I always thought that Redbacks liked to be under things, tiles, bricks, logs etc but never on the top of a screen door that opened umpteem times a day for the cat.

Well, she had a nice final meal and a couple of weeks in the sun but laying eggs at head height and maybe coming in the house was not on. Surface spray on the door and fly spray for a quick release. That was the plan but she wasn't going easily, more fight than a dog over a bone. The cat who never takes notice of anything unless it's in a dish started to pat at it with her paw.
That's all I needed a cat with a spider bite so she was locked in until the end.

So that's a total of five species seen, Golden Orbs, Daddy long legs, Redback, Huntsman and that big black brute still hiding behind the begonia. I tell you, I put my hand in the box for the mail very carefully these days.

NIGHT LIGHT

For Robbert because he just can't get enough of this volcano.

IRONING 101

It's a very serious business, this ironing of clothes and it has rules.

Rule number one:
Never, never buy clothes that need ironing.

Never buy a sheet set for $20 at a 'going out of business' sale without looking at the tab that says 100 per cent cotton. It doesn't matter if the sheets have pretty embroidery and match your white and mauve butterfly doona because if it's cotton, it has to be ironed for the next 10 years before it's beaten into submission and becomes soft enough to be called luxury. And don't be conned into thinking it's a European Brand because the name looks Swedish because it's made in China and you've just broken your self-imposed ban on anything Chinese.

If you have done a bad thing and shoved all and sundry into the dryer so that it looks like the cat has been sleeping on them for months then only iron the front. I mean if you sit or lay your head on something then no-one sees the other side.

Never iron tea towells, just fold them in half cover with a pillow case and sit on them until you've finished the other stuff. Creases gone and a neat fold in the middle.

Never marry, he'll expect you to iron his shirts and press trousers. If he does, then it means he had a mother who spoilt him rotten because she did it all and didn't teach him how to. No woman wants anybody that needy. Of course they can learn to do strange things all by themselves. The ex would roll up one sock, stuff it down the toe of the matching one. A complete waste of time but fascinating to watch the male mind at work. Being a woman, I simply bought the same kind and colour of sock and threw them all in the drawer.

Don't skimp on the iron. I bought a cheap one and it drinks water like a football club on a beer bender. Cheap irons don't bother with writing on the dial so it's a guess as to where the cotton or wool setting is. If you're lucky you get min and max. Get a teflon coated one, it's so easy to clean any melted lace off the bottom and good ones have grooves to go around buttons.

And now that we're going through autumn and it's getting chilly, ignore the plaintive whine from the bottom of the ironing basket. You won't need those cotton dresses until near Christmas and the cat needs something to sleep on.

LIGHTNING NOW

I keep finding the most fantastic photographs but
Marco Fulle definitely has the best of the lot. So go over there and stop me posting more.
That lightning display is even better than the Chaiten photos of last year.

ASH RULES

The Finnish Air Force has released images showing the effects of volcanic dust ingestion from inside the engines of a Boeing F-18 Hornet fighter, while it prepares to make inspections on several additional aircraft.

Five of the air force’s Hornets were involved in a training exercise on the morning of 15 April, just hours before the imposition of airspace restrictions due to the ash cloud spreading from a major volcanic eruption in Iceland.

One aircraft’s engines have been inspected so far using a boroscope, with melted ash clearly visible on its inside surface. The air force decided to release the images to show the potentially damaging effects of current flight activities, says chief information officer Joni Malkamäki

Now along with rock particles in the ash clouds, volcanic glass droplets are also forming. The airlines are asking why they can't fly beneath the ash cloud, well probably because the sky is falling. As usual it comes down to money. How much are they loosing by staying on the ground against how much extra in fuel costs to fly lower altitudes. I think I'll be like Jane and park the broom in the shed and walk.

If you want to know how big that glacier is just look at the planes going past. That blue at the top is cascading melt water from the eruption. There have been amazing photographs taken of this eruption and it hasn't stopped yet.

WHY THE PLANES ARE ON THE GROUND

This is the ash cloud on the 17th of April, 2010.

And now it's still going wild on the 18th April, 2010.

Photos are from the Daily Mail in Britain.

ASH PLUME

This ash cloud fom Eyjafjallajokull volcano is streaming across the Atlantic towards Britain and Europe and it's the reason why all flights have been cancelled. The ash is not the kind of powdery grey stuff left over after a fire but it full of tiny pulverised particles of rock which can stop jet engines and strip the paint from the fuselage. The tan colour of the cloud indicates a fairly hight ash content.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite captured this natural-colour image on April 15, 2010.

This eruption started on March 20, and comes from a stratovolcano which means alternating layers of ejected ash, lava and rocks. It is erupting underneath the ice of the glacier, melting the ice which is causing the violent explosions as water hits the molten lava. The original fissure was about 1000 metres long has joined two more fissures and is now a single erupting vent.

BALM FOR THE EYES

See you start off looking at a frosty funny looking square piece of rough sapphire. You look through it, trying to see the heart of it. Turn it every which way and upside down. Study it again and talk to it. Dream about it until it starts to speak to you. Grind it down with diamond dust and polish it with love and then let it warm you with its fire.

I SPOKE TOO SOON

Are you reading Andrew ? After the Tax File Number comes a letter from the Electoral Office where mother's address has been put down as mine.
A little note asks if everyone at this address registered to vote?
No, clots because she doesn't live here and she doesn't want to vote because she hates both John and Ted.
Another phone call tomorrow to fix that.
The way things are going I swear if she falls off the twig the funeral home will lose the body and I'll be sent off to look for it.

So another day at the home for me. I had to pick up a registered letter and since I had to walk that far I might as well take down the cardigans she wanted and sneak in two caramello bears. I wasn't stupid enough to get there at lunch today and she wouldn't share her cupcake with me at afternoon tea. I should have taken the bears back.
Now just whisper this quietly, with some luck I won't have to go down until next week.
Whoopee!

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

I was on the phone for 30 minutes on Friday before I got past the robots and spoke to a human at the Tax Office.
So for today, I topped up the mobile credits and wrote out a script for mother and prepared to wait.
5 minutes, that's all it took from go to whoa for the Tax File Number and my authority to be recorded.
Gobsmacked.
Now I was trapped at a table full of craft diddly bits and 7 wheelchairs between me, the door and freedom.
"You'll stay for lunch" was an order not a question.
Fine since I was trapped anyway.
Not fine was being put next to little old lady who looks like she wouldn't hurt a fly but she has a mean trick of patting one's arm before she goes for the blood drawing pinch.
I wished I'd put my crowbar in the bag.
Then to the bank with the TFN and the papers went off this afternoon to stop the money grab.
28 days apparently before I see the dollars and the TO is getting the interest.
When I finally fell in the gate, I had a telephone bill for $94.
$57 worth of mobile calls in 30 days.
I'd rather pay the money than go down and sit beside 'The Claw' at lunch.

WORDS

At last I've finished the book by the word nerdy author who introduced me to:

Traducing: to misrepresent willfully the conduct or character of; defame; slander
All of which I've been doing to Sedgwick and Hughes for years.

Desuetude: a condition of disuse.
My brain for the last 3 years.

This is one of his paragraphs:

"William Waldorf Astor retired to his Brighton Villa, devoted himself to the prodigious consumption of food and drink and died on 18th October 1919, after a fine meal of roast mutton and macaroni. His body was found, slumped in the lavatory, replete and dead."

In the age of twitter:
Big Wig pigged out, bogged out and logged out.

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE AND IT WAS

from http://www.cargolaw.com/images/Singles.iceberg.GIF

June 17 2005 Update - After this photo was posted for 6 days, our reader

Adrian Round pointed out the sad truth -- this photo is a hoax!

As we are now told, "Global Marine Drilling does do work in the ocean off Newfoundland; there are Rig Managers involved; and icebergs really are towed in the offshore industry - but this 'photo' is really a composite of 4 separate images, put together in 1999 by underwater photographer

Ralph A. Clevenger. It's probably best known from its use on a motivational poster put out by Successories

, a company that produces posters and other materials with inspirational mottoes for use in business settings. Icebergs off Newfoundland may weigh as much as several million tons, but not 300 million tons as stated (though they do occasionally reach that weight in other parts of the world)."

According to the website,

TruthOrFiction.com underwater photographer Ralph Clevenger

, who has written:

"I created the image as a way of illustrating the concept of what you get is not necessarily what you see. As a professional photographer I knew that I couldn't get an actual shot of an iceberg the way I envisioned it, so I created the final image by compositing several images I had taken. The two halves of the iceberg are 2 separate shots, one taken in Alaska and one taken in Antarctica (neither is underwater). The only underwater part is the background taken off the coast of California. The sky is the last component. It took a lot of research on lighting and scale to get the berg to look real."

See the original "photo" at

Successories

ANOTHER DAY ON THE TREADMILL

It's been a day but not as bad as our Andrew had.
The Tax Office makes Centrelink look like geniuses ? genii? whatever.
I ring the ATO this morning and get my Tax file number but no I can't have my mother's but if I pop along to Centrelink they'll print off a sheet for me with the number on it.
No they won't because they told me they can't but on the off chance Centrelink was wrong I headed up there.
I forgot, why did I need the TFN when the bank already has it? Because the ATO has encrypted it and won't let the bank have it to send it back to the ATO so they can send back the money they've grabbed because the bank haven't put a TFN on the bank account.
Get that.
Centrelink don't have a TFN either but they do have the paper work to fill out to get one. Jeebus martha and jeremiah, it requires everything but a pint of blood. New strategy, get to the home early on Monday with script in hand for mother to ring for her own tax number. This will probably use up the $30 credit I have on the mobile but worth it.
I took delivery of the full series of Babylon 5 this morning, delivered by courier so who was the other courier that left a note in the box for me to pick up a parcel at the agency? I was home all day until I left (sorry, licorice brain) so lazy swine couldn't walk to the front door for a signature?
Take taxi to Centrelink, stand on bung knee for 20 minutes listening to obnoxious individual behind me who whinges constantly that he has to wait. Walk up to the gem shop for update on divine ring that will enhance my loveliness then catch Berwick bus which stops outside pharmacy which is Australia post agency and pick up teeny tiny parcel from Bangkok. Halfway out of the shop and I'm confronted by Darrell Lea half price Easter eggs, I mean half price and Turkish Delight eggs. I had hand in purse and a sign called feedee on my forehead and walked home with egg - one egg.
Ring mother, wonderful day at the Botanical Gardens but she couldn't take jewell-encrusted velvet covered wheelchair so is now in pain and in bed. They should have bought a map to the gardens as taking 7 wheelchairs up a slight hill was hard but not as hard as not letting them go when they turned to go downhill. She'll be ready and lucid for Monday, my mother, lucid.

NOW THE ICE

River kindly sent this from Shambles Manor and it was too good not to steal.

"This came from a Rig Manager for Global Marine Drilling in St. Johns, Newfoundland. They actually have to divert the path of these things away from the rig by towing them with ships. In this particular case the water was calm and the sun was almost directly overhead so that the diver was able to get into the water and click this photograph. They estimated the weight at 300,000,000 tons."

This is one brilliant shot and I'll hate it if it turns out to be photo-shopped.

LAND OF ICE AND LAVA

This photograph by Martin Rietze is of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano which erupted under the ice of the glacier of the same name.

It started erupting on March 21 and ripped a 1 kilometre long fissure in the ice with massive lava fountains shooting into the air. This lava flow is falling down a steep cliff only a few hundred metres from the main eruption.

The last volcanic eruption in this area which is about 75 miles east of the capital, Reykjavik was in 1821.

WHEN BIG IS NOT BETTER

There was a full page article in The Age on Sunday which made me rattle the paper and mutter things like mad tarts, stupid bitches. A very bad thing to finger point and insult my fellow fatbums but If I can't do it, given my status as morbidly obese, then who can.

The article was about feedees and gainers who love nothing more than to gain weight, revel in it actually but do it in secret and go to websites where they can glory in their weight gain.
Every woman has the right to do exactly what she likes in regard to her figure, fat or thin.
But as a serial dieter/stress eater, I'm constantly struggling to do one and not the other, I felt uneasy about this. Now I don't care whether I go below 100kgs but I would like to get to 100kgs. I make my own clothes and I feel good wearing them. I'll never get rid of the funny fat legs and 'mary jane' shoes are my lot forever. I don't look in the mirror and admire my ever descending boobs and the only good thing about my gut is the fact that I'll never drown, the fat would float me upside.

So can I think that the woman who wants to be 1000 lbs and the fattest person in the world is a stupid bitch? She's already over 400 kgs and just loves it. Am I weird or is she?
I'm against discrimination of fat people for jobs, it doesn't have anything to do with their ability to work well, it's the perception of fat equals dumb of the employer.
It's also people like me who look and say stupid bitch but then I say that to the mirror as well.

I've never felt that I had control over my life or people who wanted me to change into their version of what type of person I should be. If I was told to slim down, I would immediately eat in a show of passive aggression which went on until I was divorced and miraculously lost 20 kgs in a few months. I was free to be myself but it didn't last and I was back on the treadmill of passive aggressive eating. For the last three years food and stress have been the main threads of my existance. If I didn't eat, I gambled. If I didn't gamble then I went on spending sprees. If I didn't spend, I ate. It's a good thing I didn't smoke or drink but then with all the other vices, I wouldn't have had the money.

So reading about women who love gaining weight for the feeling it gives them made me angry and you know I'm the most even tempered of females (I'll crush anyone who says different).
And after writing all that, I still don't know why I got so pissed off, maybe it's because they're thin enough to get fat. Damned if I know.

FOR THE MIDDLE CHILD

Exquisite, non?

A perfume bottle of purple and gold blown glass by Joanne Gowen. The stopper is an ametrine gem wrapped in gold wire.

Is this on the want list? Right at the top.

PRECIOUS IS ALL MINE

24 carats of gold and green ametrine for $3.79 which was the lowest bid.
So what did I get?
No country of origin listed so possibly a synthetic Russian lab created stone.

The other gem I'm going for has Brazil listed as Country of Origin so that could be an amethyst heat treated for the golden part then irradiated for the purple to turn green. Amethyst and Topaz are the stones most often heat treated or irradiated.

The only place for real natural purple/gold Ametrines is the Anahi mine in Bolivia. The mine was a dowry for a conquistador named Don Luis Felipe when he married Princess Anahi from Bolivia's Ayoreos tribe in the 17th century.

The Russians have been producing synthetic (hydrothermal created) ametrines since the early 1990s. It has the same physical properties as the natural stone but any colour combination such as sky blue and golden yellow, green and yellow or orange with blue is suspect.

I'm happy as long as the colour is as depicted and the facets are sharp enough to make the bling sparkle. A lot can happen in front of a good photographer, like making a crumby stone look like a million dollars. I mean I've seen Easter Eggs that cost more than this.

MY LIFE IN PASSING

This is a 507 carat diamond in the rough called the 'Cullinan Heritage' and the Chow Tai Fook jewellery company paid $35.3 million for it, the highest ever paid for a rough diamond.

The company plans to cut it into a fine round diamond of more than 120 carats.

This sweet little diamond is 20 carats and the chunk up above will be more than 5 times as large when it's cut and polished. Not quite as big as the Millennium Star, 203.04 carats, I blogged about last month.


I am currently in a bidding war on eBay for two stones, one for $20 and one for $7. They're listed as ametrines which to my mind is yellow citrine and purple amethyst but these are a golden to green oval and pear shape. $35 million against $27, but I know my limits even if eBay tell me I must bid up or I might loose the gems.

I've been trawling the web looking at jewellery and gems to calm down after an exciting week.
I mean, a second full moon of the month, an earth tremor, a plane crash on the ritzy golf course and the arrival of the new wheel chair which, thank the Goddess, is still too hard for me to push. She looked so comfortable in it yesterday that she'll probably live for another 50 years.

They had me draw the Easter Egg raffle and, trust me, I pulled out the name of the dear little lady who dropped off the twig last week. After a hurried consultation they decided to do a re-draw (like that wasn't a given) and it wasn't my ticket. I did win a bingo game but only after I checked that no-one else was anywhere near getting bingo. My mother told me to eat the marshmallow bunnies because she wanted the plastic bag so now I know what to buy her for Mothers Day, a box of plastic bags.

So now I'm relaxing between computer bids and reading a book. It's a social history book and I keep coming across words which I've no idea of the meaning. I've taken to writing them down for a dictionary marathon. One snippet I loved was about Duchess Lily, wife to the rotten 8th Duke of Marborough who obligingly croaked at the age of 48. Whistler had painted of portrait of the Duke's mistress, the voluptuous Lady Colin Campbell, but good ol Duchess Lily ripped it to shreds and posted the pieces to her ladyship. I love a good revenge. I didn't have to do that, since the Blonde has the ex sleeping, snoring and slobbering beside her every night.

Now if anybody knows the meaning of 'rascinating', just leave it in the comments.

I LOVE COOKING SHOWS

I love watching other people get hot and bothered in a kitchen.
I used to cook but now it's too hard to think about.
My 12 egg pavlovas were famous but what's the point of cooking a pavlova for one. I might as well buy those dry little shells and fill them with cream (double cream, no beating) and frozen berries.
I used to make my own curry powder now it's almost mind bending trying to get the lid off the supermarket jar.
Vegetables looking a bit tired get eaten for fibre if not vitamins.
I buy Gourmet Traveller to look at the pretty pictures.
Fusion Food around these parts consists of last night's tofu chilli cakes covered with tonight's Italian pasta sauce.
Dessert will be Mango yoghurt with Triple Chocolate ice-cream.
That's the kitchen speciality.
Drop in any time.
Leave your stomach at the gate.

I'M ALMOST, FAIRLY SURE, POSITIVE WE JUST HAD AN EARTHQUAKE

The windows shook and rattled.
Then the loud bang as the wave hit the concrete floor.
But 3kms away my sister thought a possum had jumped on the roof.
And put to rest the theory that animals rush around and give warning of an approaching tremor.
The cat never moved a whisker.
Of course I could be wrong.

NOT CUTE

This is Bagheera kiplingi, the first vegetarian spider known to science.

It was discovered in Central America and goes after plants as a primary food source.

Out of 40,000 known spider species, this is the only one who hunts plants.

Told it wasn't cute, fast, agile and it jumps.

**********

The human body is estimated to be home to 100 trillion living microbes. We're a buffet of saliva, sweat, dead skin cells, food particles between our teeth and our digestive system.

I vote yes for phone sex.

**********

Now for our lovely Kath, some vital infartmation. There are scientists who specialize in fart research (bet you didn't know that) and the world is divided into smellies and inflammables.

Smellies have sulphate reducing bacteria which produce hydrogen sulphide especially if they're diet is high in sulphurous foods such as eggs, white bread and red wine.

Inflammables have methane-making bacteria. Methane is odourless but this is the one that lights up the world if you put a match to it.

(Kath I'd love to be there when you tell your lovely daughter that you have a new party trick for parent/teacher night)

**********

And now for something completely different. I received my order from the Chocolate Mill this morning, very early, so early I didn't have half my teeth in but remembered not to smile at the delivery man. I had to sign one of those dinky little electronic machines that makes your signature look like ants crawling away from a jumping spider.

It was a big box, goodie says big stomach. So I'm searching through crumpled newspaper like a child through cheval merde looking for the pony and find a minute box in the bottom. I swear it was so small it could have been sent in a CD package but I'd forgotten I'd ordered chocolate covered licorice as well. I did a quick check, yep, 16 truffles but so little. I looked at the hand made chocs at Southland which are selling for 2.95 each and calculated that what I spent was less than buying 16 of these. I haven't touched them, they're for Egg Sunday. Five days, I have five days to go.

AW, AREN'T THEY CUTE

An adult bear has 10 centimetres of blubber beneath its skin.

This is covered by a thick coat of dense fur.

Each hair of this fur is a hollow tube so that air is trapped inside as well as between them.

The hairy padded feet are also callused on the underside which gives a layer of dead tissue between the ice and any blood vessels.

As well as this the underside has dozens of papillae (tiny nipple like studs) which gives an additional cushion of insulating air between paw and ice and great grip on the ice for fast turns towards prey.

Unfortunately as all this insulation conserves heat efficiently any exertion in temperatures above 10 degrees Celcius could cause heat stroke and kill off the bear.

So if you get caught on the ice just ahead of a running bear, keep going until one of you drops.

My money's on the bear.

AS ABOVE NOT QUITE SO BELOW

He was a pretty good looking kid at 17. It was past the era of the graffiti artist and on to the bush and waterfall photographer. He still like wearing expensive French aftershave but there was always the rebel just below the surface.





The rebel part. High tops and no sides, that red colour belongs to his socks. The passive resistance to new shoes mostly extended to family parties where he could annoy the bejeebus out of his paternal Grandfather.

There were times I could have fitted him for concrete boots but now I just try to hold onto the funny parts of the brat.

ANOTHER IGNORANCE IS BLISS POST

The weight of bacteria in and around the human body is approximately 1.25 kg.

I presume that's a washed body.

Try not thinking about that when coming home through a mob of teenagers.

That's the final argument for not sharing a bed with another body.

On the other hand, it means that 1.25 of this flab isn't mine.

Triple chocolate ice-cream for dessert.

There's always a silver lining somewhere.

LIFE AT THE HOME

I should have had this tattooed on my eyelids before I got married and it has nothing whatsoever to do with this blog post. I just thought it might be a helpful tip to put in the spinster's Hope Chest, you know the one, it has a new toothbrush, shiny razor and 12 dozen condoms. Actually this post complete with cute photo was going to be about why Polar Bears feet don't freeze but condensing 3 pages of New Scientist to something that makes sense isn't possible after a day at the home for death's door mothers who suddenly slam it shut.

She dreamt she died last night and someone else was in her bed when she came back. And why did she come back? Because I was holding her hand and touching the rings on her finger and saying, "I know you're in there, come out." I haven't told my sister this, she'd probably break every bone in both my hands. There was a whole lot of layers to this dream and whatever they're putting in those pain patches is obviously better than a foot long spliff and I saw the effects of that at the last party.

So the old girl's back in form and up playing bingo and cheating like crazy. Bingo is very serious stuff down in the 'hood. Competition for the biggest pile of chocolate wins is ruthless and a dead heat yelling 'bingo' is the stuff of duelling straight from the Prisoner of Zenda. Every one today had won 2 games each, 2 chocolate bars each and the last game was on. My mother is caller and her method of throwing the numbers in the general direction of the board confused everyone except her. Method in the madness, she was stacking the deck, as it were. Sticking the numbers together so her rival at the opposite end of the table had no chance of winning a third chocolate.

When I pointed out the stuck together numbers, I got a clunk on the arm with the numbers box (I am bruised) and a warning stare. I've never seen a high stakes poker game at Crown Casino but it couldn't have been more intense than with these hovering claws ready to drop the last plastic bottle top on the winning number. They play with large plastic green tops so they aren't confused with chocolates and a mass choking takes place. Rival E was distracted by the arrival of a friend and quick as a flash Ma scanned the table and produced a winning number for Mr G who got a vicious look from Rival E as he pocketed the last of the KitKats. I got another clunk for nearly exposing her brilliant strategy.

ANOTHER CENTURY

Before the beauty of Lady Diana Spencer there was

the beauty of Lady Diana Cooper .

For the first of the fabulous costume balls after the Second

World War which was held in Venice, she went dressed as

Cleopatra from Tiepolo's magnificent painting which is in

the National Gallery of Victoria.

She loved this costume so much that Cecil Beaton photographed

her in it and after that she used it as her passport image.

How great is that?

THE EYES, IT'S ALL IN THE EYES

THE MILLENNIUM COLLECTION

Now this is what I call a decent chunk of diamond. It's the centrepiece of the De Beers Millennium Collection and called appropriately the "Millennium Star", a D colour, flawless pear-shaped 54 facet stone weighing a whopping 203.04 carats. It weighed 777 carats in the rough and it took the Steinmetz Group three years to cut. It was first split in Belgium, polished in South Africa and finished in New York. Harry Oppenheimer remarked that it was the most beautiful diamond he'd ever seen and he's seen a lot of diamonds in his time.




Now we have the rest of the Millennium Collection. Eleven rare blue diamonds with a total weight of 118 carats including the little one (5.16 carats) at the bottom which is being auctioned at Southeby's in April. The lovely Heart of Eternity at 27.64 carats has been classified by the GIA as a Fancy Vivid Blue, a grade higher than Fancy Intense.

Blue diamonds are rare with red diamonds the rarest of all. The De Beers Premier mine is an important source of blue diamonds but they only make up 0.1 percent of diamonds mined there.

The Heart of Eternity is beautiful, more so than the Hope which is a Fancy Deep Grayish Blue and although larger at 45 carats, I'd prefer this Heart to be mine.

DOWNTIME, VERY DOWN

Saturday night was good but I discovered too many months, had passed and I had lost the connection with people I was becoming familiar with.
I learnt about parties that I would have been invited to but because my letter writing had disintegrated into nothing but 'mother' and depression, I would tear them up and not trouble others with my trouble.
I retreated into the shadows and took up my people watching stance.

They were uninhibited, drinking, dancing, having fun without thinking about getting home in a taxi, what was the cat going or having knees that don't dance.
The first time I went to a party at that house, it was a major miracle. I hadn't been out alone for nearly ten years and it took a heap of backbone to get dressed and go. It was the same this time. I haven't been out alone at night for nearly two years, it felt like the first time and right up until I put my hand on the phone to call for a taxi, I didn't know if I could do it.
Perhaps it was too soon to be the life of the party. I'm still running on empty.
I aided in breaking the law by helping build the longest spliff I'd ever seen in my short party life but moved to the verandah before the big lighting up. I don't like the smell of the smoke, it makes me feel ill. How big? So big it had to be held in BBQ tongs for anyone to take a puff.
I've never been a huge party animal preferring a dinner table discussion and good food and that was part of the downhill turn.

At some stage, I realized that next day would have been my 40th wedding anniversary and only one of that mad, funny crowd I was watching had been there. Forty years and only one person beside my mother and sister was near me. I don't count the relo's but not one friend from those days has been seen for years. There was one but I was doing all the phoning and I could feel her moving in different directions especially since The Blight left and there were no more boozy barbie afternoons. I ripped up most of those photographs with great pleasure. So I thought I would let her have the next phone call and that was a year and a half ago, maybe more. And another one bites the dust.

So Sunday morning comes and I look at the shambles that is my home, the curtains are still shredded, the cat is sleeping in the washing basket and my mother's house is still scattered in every room. Also scattered and joyous on bare feet is crystal kitty litter in the laundry where I find most of the towells and clothes I've forgotten to wash, another chore. I am surprised that I haven't wept since I usually do.

Monday brings the call that mother has had an 'episode' and she doesn't remember what has gone wrong. I do, and tell them, explain what to do, tell her not to worry, it's all happened before and will again. Could I go through my diaries and tell them exactly when was the last time. Not a snowball's chance could I read about the last three years so I say it was about 2008. My sister doesn't remember it happening at all. She goes down Monday, says hello and comes home.
I have slept on and off for three days and going there yesterday was almost at bad as Saturday night but it was needed and she was in bed, the colour of the sheets. By the time I left, her colour was much better and I was happy to see that the nurses were in all the time to check her.
She called this morning, much better and looking forward to a shopping expedition in the morning but she'd noticed me.

I laugh it off but I'm in trouble with a knee that shouldn't be hurting, bruises I hadn't seen before I fell off the ladder. My life gauge is stuck on empty and there's nothing and no-one to help fill it.
But then why would anyone want to, according to my sister, I am so negative and unpleasant to be around. A remark made in the middle of my dealing with every bureaucracy in the universe.
I won't forget that remark. Over 40 years I have finely honed my secretive and untrusting nature into a suit of armour that lets nothing penetrate or if you like, I'm a giant Easter egg, full of gooey, luscious fruity centre but the chocolate shell is a right bastard to break.

ANTARCTIC COLLISION

Two massive icebergs drifted along the coast of East Antarctica in early March 2010. In mid-February 2010, the Rhode Island-sized Iceberg B-09B

collided

with the protruding Mertz Glacier Tongue along the George V Coast. The Mertz Glacier was already in the process of calving an iceberg when the arrival of the B-09B accelerated the process, leaving two icebergs the size of small states off this part of Antarctica’s coast.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer

(MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua

satellite captured this true-color image of Iceberg B-09B and the newly created iceberg off the Mertz Glacier. Between each iceberg and the coast floats a mélange of smaller pieces of ice. Farther out to sea, delicate white swirls indicate a relatively thin layer of sea ice. Occasional clouds floating overhead cast shadows on the ice surfaces below.

NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz,

MODIS Rapid Response Team

at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.

I couldn't have put that better myself so I didn't, just copied and paste.

DUCKS

The duck family is back in the synchrotron dam

but to get to the water they have to cross the car park

so drive carefully around Monash Uni.

SLOW IS SOMETIMES GOOD

Not rushing in and phoning the Tax office but seeing the bank first, that's slow overnight thinking.
When I originally opened mum's account in 2000, I hoped I'd used her tax file number and behold, tucked away in their files was the TFN. So now St. George are arranging for the withholding tax to be returned to her accounts.
I posted mum's letters.
I bought a new pretty tray for the cat's gingham food dish. This was for sanity's sake, she's taken to moving the old tin tray around the kitchen floor, just because she can and it makes a satisfying noise.
I bought Frontline Flea control for the cat.

Then I met Miss O'Dyne at the bus terminus.
I introduced her to San Churro and it's truffles.
We had lunch and red wine.
We went to Gold Class and saw Alice in Wonderland.

We had more drinkies and citrus tarts with coconut cream and (for GC) illegal truffles and enjoyed the film.

Then we took the bus to Mentone where Miss O'Dyne staggered off to the train and I staggered off to see mother and put more credits on her mobile phone.

She'd also been out to lunch and didn't want her tea so I ate it.

Some days just go well.

MY PRECIOUSSSSS ONE

Okay so it's goodbye to broadband and welcome back to pre-paid dial-up.

Thank you Technicalities service man who cleaned up the desktop which was overheavy with anti-virus programs fighting like gladiators at the arena. He also upped the memory to 1GB (it's old and only had 256MB) and got rid of a load of processing stuff going on behind the scenes.
He was here for over an hour and explained a lot of what was going on and it cost $253.00 The best thing was I didn't have to leave the house.

I didn't feel right about the Optusnet deal so I rang and cancelled that. Mother will have $30 on her phone for emergencies and I will ring her. She said to add up the mobile costs on my phone and take it out of her bank account if I'm stretched. Good idea.

She's feeling a lot better because they're trying out pain patches on her arms instead of slow release morphine pills. Only a few weeks to go before the diamond encrusted wheelchair arrives and I write the big cheque. She is dreaming of me being able to wheel her to Mentone, to shop and have coffee.

Her dream, my nightmare.

THE INCOMPARABLE DIAMOND

That's what this beauty is called and rightly so. It was discovered in Mbuji Mayi and its weight as a rough diamond was 890 carats.

After four years of studying the rock, it was cut into a 407.48 carat gem, and is the third largest diamond ever to be cut. The cutting was done by a team lead by Marvin Samuels, who was the co-owner of the stone together with Donald Zale of Zales Jewellers and Louis Glick.

It would have been the largest but it had internal flaws that needed to be removed to show its true glory.

Even its display stand is in a class of its own and would look nice wherever I wanted.





I'm still looking for the Millenium gems to take my mind off the fact I have more "mother work to do". Looking at the bank statements I didn't know what TFN meant, I know it meant money was taken out but not what the letters stood for. Tax File Number, if I don't have it then the bank takes out withholding tax. Centrelink tells me that when you first go on the pension the Tax Office sends out your TFN which is yours forever. Oh goody, mother hasn't a clue, I don't even know what mine is although I remember getting a tax notice about July. So now I have to do the search and I'm hoping there's a local tax office so I don't have to go into the city. Why didn't the bank ask me for the TFN when I opened the account?



I've signed up for broadband because it includes free calls to optusnet mobiles which will save me money ringing mother who has just gone through $50 in a week on her mobile. So she'll get $30 for emergencies and I'll ring her. I just have a few questions to ask, just to clarify some facts like being told 12 month plan and finding 24 months on the contract. I want a landline phone and my own number, nothing changed. $60 a month for 2GB and unlimited calls which is less than I'm paying now, thanks to ma.



And Optusnet, give some spelling lessons to staff, pensioner is that not pentioner. No wonder I'm wasting time looking at diamonds. It's golden, the colour of Leo and on the want list.

MORE MY STYLE

Just look at this piece of yumyumgoodyallmine. 5.16 carats of rare flawless fancy blue diamond which was once part of De Beers Millenium Collection which was made up of 12 uniquely rare gems.
Sotheby's are putting it up for Auction in Hong Kong in April.
My birthday's in July.
I don't like waiting.
I want it now.
You can have the Prase.

PRASE OPAL

I don't really like this gem. It's Prase opal, a variety of common opal but with nickel giving it the neon bluish-green hue. This and Chrysoprase are similar in appearance but distinguished by their varying Refractive Index and Specific Gravity and Prase opal tends to be more translucent.
This particular opal came from recently discovered veins on Mount Iyobo in central Tanzania where Chrysoprase and Prase opal have been mined for more than 20 years. The new discovery has some of the most intense bluish green material mined in this area.

They both form in discontinuous veins within metamorphosed ultramafic (iron rich) rocks with the dominant host rock being altered serpentine. The top gem weighs in at 11 carats but I don't like the green hue. What I covet is the specimen in the rough, I love this piece. I love the matrix stone above and below that gives a richer green to the Prase opal.

The picture also brought back a dream I once had, a very long time ago but one of those dreams that tend to stick in the mind. I was in a room entirely made of Chrysoprase but not smooth, the walls and floor were like this piece of matrix. I have no idea what it meant and it didn't give me any liking for the gem. My mind is full of little mysteries like that. It's probably full of holes like Swiss Cheese as well.

I'd put in a map to Mount Iyobo but I ditched goggle earth for taking up too much computer room.

THE NOBLE ART OF BITCHING

And I've been doing such a lot of it today.

I'm downloading a new anti-spyware and I can't remember if it was the free version or the pay up or else we'll fry your hard drive. I wouldn't care but it's taken since 12.30 and dial-up cuts out after an hour so it's check all the time.

Which brings me to the next bitching thing. Why can't they say in English, PLAIN ENGLISH, what broadband plans they have without ditching this phone or that service and answer what exactly it will cost and how long it will take. Why doesn't someone do websites for dummies for broadband.

Which brings me to another bitching. When a large store has a website with all the bells and whistles in colour and ritzy things but I can't find where the curtains are, then shouldn't someone, like a computer robot, be there to direct internet dummies? Curtains are now imperative since the cat, instead of going under, decided to go through the voile this morning. And after I'd patiently cut out the shredded bits from the other day. Up yours Spotlight, I'm going to Lincraft in person.

I'm also diet bitching. I have a party to go to in 10 days. Ten days to lose at least 5kgs, a not impossible task for The Biggest Losers but for me, not so easy although I had one of those diet shakes for lunch, strawberry which tastes vile but I put instant coffee in it. I walked to the post box with the RSVP, bought a bottle of Coke Zero, (I'll be living on caffiene) but couldn't resist the apricot danish - Diet Fail. And then there's the birthday cake tomorrow, baked fresh sponge, fresh cream and jam filling and luscious icing - Diet Fail. Going to the movies on Wednesday, Gold Class in the middle of umpteen food places including San Churro chocolate delight - Diet Fail.

And now after all this time Spyware doctor is downloaded and oh noes, 70mb of updates which at my current speed will take 12 hours. So it's being installed without updates which I'll do some time later, much later. Fecking dial-up, no it's the fault of the internet thinking that everyone has enough loot to do broadband. #@%&*

WITTELSBACH-GRAFF BLUE DIAMOND

This is the Wittelsbach-Graff Blue diamond which will be on display with the Hope diamond. I prefer this colour to that of the Hope and there is speculation that both diamonds came from the same Indian mine.
The diamond's history goes back to 1664 when it was given by Philip IV of Spain to his daughter, the Infanta Margarita Teresa on her engagement to Emperor Leopold I of Austria. In 1772, the diamond passed to the Wittelsbachs, the ruling House of Bavaria.


Laurence Graff bought the diamond in December 2008 and he decided to repolish the stone, in the process reducing its 35.56 carats to an internally flawless 31.06 (the Hope is 45.52 carats)
and putting his own name to the stone.


Here are the two stones, Wittelsbach-Graff on the right and the Hope on the left, fluorescing under UV light.

Even with the re-cutting and re-polishing of the stone, Graff took great care to retain its original features. It has a top certification of internally flawless, type Ilb (the rarest), Fancy Deep Blue from the Gemological Institute of America.



Nothing to do with large blue diamonds but if anyone has this 4.75 Fuschia pink sapphire rolling around in a drawer, I would be interested in taking great care of it. I'll even pay the postage.