Christmas Cloud

This wonderful cloud called a Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, appeared over Birmingham, Alabama this week.
The name is a combination from Lord Kelvin - a Scottish baron who along with German physicist Hermann Helmholtz - came up with an explanation for the freak occurrence.

It's also called a wave cloud and occurs in regions with vast plains where winds quickly change speed creating turbulence.  A fast -moving lighter density cloud, usually a layer of Cirrus cloud, slides on top of a slower, thicker layer, dragging out the surface and creating a wave rolling over water effect.

For more lovely clouds here's the site to visit.

Let's Parteeee

The party went swingingly well.  I've never seen the day room so crowded and it was the best Christmas party yet.  The staff handed food around during the entertainment and given the amount of booze the residents went for, I'd say it was very quiet last night.
Usually the entertainment is on first then food but this way it was much better as it filled in the time and no-one got restless.  The nurses had cooked most of the food themselves so it was nice and fresh and the only fail was the salmon mousse on cucumber slices which they didn't recognize as food. I gave it a top pass, they were delicious. The nurses were great as they bought out the mushed food that some residents can swallow and fed them at the same time so they didn't feel as though they were missing out.


The BOH picked me up around 6.30 and was wearing a nice new shirt.  First time in 20 years, his father managed to remember he wasn't 12 years old nor an XXXL size, he did forget to remove the price tag though.  BOH came home about midnight, said hello, had a swig of coca cola from the fridge and without a word disappeared again. I still haven't seen him but he never drives when he's been drinking so he's probably sleeping on someone's floor.  The thing is, I now have another car in the drive. Datsun is missing, station wagon is missing, black ute is at the factory with a big 'For Sale' sign but a little blue car has taken their place.
Silver ute is still here, owner hasn't stumped up the cash for the polishing job.  Sometimes I feel as though I'm living in that computer game, "Gone in 60 Seconds".  He'll turn up eventually, green around the gills. He, like myself, did not inherit the family gene for booze tolerance.

Sheeee's Baaack!



The new painkillers are working a treat.  Not even the lifting machine is hurting and that goes underneath the arms.  Of course it doesn't fix the problem, that will keep growing but at least she won't know about it until the next bout of pain. She's back making  Christmas cards and enjoying herself.  The only change is that she no longer wants to mix with the other residents as much and she doesn't mind not going down to the shops for a coffee or lunch.  She doesn't have to go anywhere for supplies, she has enough to rival Hallmark.  Will we get another year? Sister says very doubtful as she's done some research on this kind of pain and it usually means the lung is affected but she doesn't want to know and we don't want to have the job of telling her.

And tomorrow is the residents Christmas Party.  I was volunteered again to help out, I can't think who does that for me.  I try not to open my mouth at all.  And non-alcholic booze in case I fall over a walker.  I bought a bottle for my own little Christmas, I like the taste of sparkling cuvee but I hate getting sloshed and feeling as though my tongue is dragging on the ground. I do not have the family tolerance for booze.  A half dozen cans of VB for my sister is just gargling water.  One stubby of Cascade Light at the pub and I can't sit on the stool watching the pokie wheels go round without hanging on to whoever is next to me and it's never a good looking bloke.

So Tungsten Tessie lives for another Christmas, third one at the Home, 6th one since the experts said she might get one.  My mother and cockroaches, last ones standing after an A-bomb.  



I heart Doc Marvin

What else can you say about a doctor that leaves his home number beside a patient's name to be called immediately if needed?

Mum is now on one 24 hour slow release pain tablet plus Endone, paracetamol and morphine injection if the pain gets a hold. He was firm about asking for the morphine, insisting that she mustn't have to endure any discomfort.

So I'm off to the Home again and every day until the pain control kicks in or the cancer comes to the fore.  When she's out of bed and in the chair again with the cards and glue then I'll be relieved but at the moment I can't see that happening.  But she wants to make a card for the Doc so I printed out some great images of Marvin the Martian and we can make a start on the card today.

She was relieved when I said I'd be down today. She was in so much pain yesterday and I could see it in her face and she's a little frightened.  And my sister was almost in tears when she rang and caught me at Southland (I was on my way down) and that is a bad sign for old "I don't care what happens" sister.

All I want for Christmas is for a peaceful goodbye if that's the way it has to be. She deserves that.

Revolving motors

I'm really trying to get used to this new blogger interface but I hate change unless it's a change in chocolate brands.

So changes.......

I'm impatiently waiting for mail so I've been out looking at least 3 times already.

I hear the bvroom of the Datsun in the carport as it shoots off.  I'm up to my ears sorting out a trillion of his socks for the washer so don't wonder that he doesn't come in. He must be busy, please let him be earning money for once.

Out for another mail check, gates are shut.  Strange, he usually leaves them open for the precious 'built from scratch' Datsun to come back.  Turn head, do double take as I now have a shiny silver ute in the carport.  Down to the gate, silver station wagon is still there but black ute has gone.  Come to think of it, when did I see the black ute last? Wednesday?  Cue senior's moment.

Considering the money, work, sweat and tears that have gone into the little Datsun, I may well kill him if he's sold it or worse, exchanged it for a shiny silver ute.  I may be jumping the gun here, jumping to conclusions or just jumping.  There could be blood on the moon tonight.

Update: Datsun is back in carport. Silver ute is here to be polished. Black Ute is sitting somewhere with a big "For Sale" sign on it. And the BOH has just driven the station wagon back to work. He lives another day.

Christmas suddenly doesn't feel that close.



One afternoon tea down and very nice it was.  I thought I was holding the wine well until I discovered that it was non-alchoholic.  It was also a farewell for one of the carers who was the first to look after Mum.  Usually I'm alone or trying to be alone with mum so I haven't had a chance to really take stock of the residents and I was a bit shocked to see how much they've gone downhill in the last six months.  This will be my 3rd Christmas Dinner at the Home, time really does fly when you aren't having fun.

The old girl isn't too good at the moment.  Plenty of drugs, enough to keep a rockband happy but the left arm is not responding to the painkillers.  Left side,mastectomy and nasty lymph nodes taken out but they left a few that looked good. I have a feeling they are now turning bad.  She was in bed this afternoon after helping with the mini Christmas trees for the dining tables and she was using her left hand and arm, doing something quite different to her usual cards and mess when the pain struck sharply and suddenly.

She doesn't even want to mix with the other residents which is not like her.  Admittedly they are hard going to talk to when feeling well let alone when in pain.  Her voice sounded unusually weak but was strong enough to tell me to be there Saturday to help clean up her craft boxes again.

But she forgot to say anything about bringing a cake.

It's beginning to feel a lot like Crapmas

The world is getting weird particularly my world. My mother wears a colostomy bag and I do the fiddly things that have to be done for her difficult condition. It's an hour of my life I'll never get back and my fingers hurt because I have to roll up the bottom with a stick strip and fold over, making sure the fold over bits go to the outside. TMI, sorry, it's life.

So to make things easier because the nursing staff just throw the whole lot into the hazardous waste and never open the bottom with the sticky strip, I thought I would ring the Ostomy Association and get exactly the same bag without a bottom sticky strip opening. No, they're not allowed to change the bags on my say so. I have to ring the District Nursing Service, who rings the stomal therapist, who rings the nursing home, who rings the doctor and then she makes an appointment to thoroughly go through mother's records etc. I know more about my mother's unusual condition than any stomal therapy nurse anywhere. I ring mother with the bad news (for me) and she said "no, bloody hell no". I thought she'd forgotten how to swear, she's always telling me off. "I hate those know-it-all bitches. You keep folding the ends."

She then tells me that she needs to buy a TENS re-chargable unit for the pain in her shoulders. She says it makes her comfortable, my sister says it's all in her head. The Home physiotherapist was going to order it but decided for some reason that I should do it and handed everything over to mum. So I'm going to walk in there with something that has to be charged like a cell phone and could give her heart a jolt if it's not okay but I can't walk in and hand over a plastic excrement bag, ostomy not my sister. I will take it to the office where it will be checked and re-checked by the electrician but I want to know why it's my job not the physiotherapist's. Her excuse was the high cost of the unit and she wanted me to be responsible.

The only joyous part of this morning was getting a parcel I've been waiting for except it was my address but not my name. Bless a company that put a phone number on the return and it turns out it is for 73 just up the street. It'll take me five minutes and I'll count that as my 30 minute day walk.

I tell you, the siren call of the soothing gin is getting stronger.

Throw another krill on the barbie

Let me introduce you to Leviathan mellvillei, he's the bigger whale eating the big whale.

He's named after Herman Melville, author of 'Moby Dick' and a favourite book of mine.

Klaas Post of the Natural History Museum of Rotterdam in the Netherlands discovered the ancient whale's fossils on the last day of a brief fossil-hunting expedition in 2008 in the Peruvian desert.

When they saw the huge teeth they knew it wasn't a baleen whale and it turned out to be a giant sperm whale.

I've been cleaning out bits and pieces from my misc. file and I can't think how I managed to miss this beauty. I love the take on the 'Jaws' poster. I'm posting it now because of another weird experiment going on. Scientists are confident that they can bring back the woolly Mammoth from frozen DNA, perhaps only five years away from success. And every week, another species is declared extinct on our planet.

Why don't they bring this baby back and dump him in the middle of a Japanese "scientific" whaling fleet? Now that would be worth the money.

The Christmas Gobsmack

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I couldn't resist the Christmas lights and the wish that some rampaging cat would have done this to the whole 40 kms we were forced to put up.

Every Christmas I usually end up not speaking to my sister which is why I buy a present for her early in the year before the declaration of war.

But this year she has excelled herself and I'm still trying to work out if I was insulted on purpose, insulted by her not thinking, her being concerned for my well being. I could just go on and on trying to work it out.

It came at the end of the phone call about Doc Marvin along with a few other snippy bits she threw in and I'd forgotten about it until last night. I am not approaching Alz, I was just tired from the day and sick of her attacks on me so I just let it slide.

I was told very forcefully not to donate or sell mum's wheelchair when she goes. 'The Wheelchair", the one costing 6 grand with a pool and room for a pony. She has never had a pressure sore or been uncomfortable in it and it is so heavy I can't push it. And why am I not to try and recover some of this money? You do remember that Elvis hasn't left the room yet and it's still being used.

Well, you see, it's very likely that I will need it for myself.

BOOM BOOM GOBSMACK!

I have a virus and an allergy

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I have a virus, nothing major but I can't speak. I also have an allergy from the floating rubbish in the garden when I was stacking bricks. I don't look well with festering spots but it will keep me from leaving the house for a few days, Yippee.

So what was that I was saying, about going to the Home because we have the room to ourselves. Not exactly quiet. The ageing bones (95) in the corner decided to have a day of biting, pinching and scratching and falling out of bed. Until Mother put a stop to that, "V put your legs back in the bed and pull the covers up!" which the old witch did and slept for the rest of the afternoon.

The nursing staff have to be kind, mother doesn't.

Resident no. 2 of the room was waiting to be taken out to lunch, she loves her food but the family rang to say they would be late. She'd missed lunch and now looked like not being fed until late afternoon and did she moan and groan. She could have had lunch there and had another lunch later and on and on and on. Mother says it's no good trying to stop her, she doesn't have an off switch.

Resident no. 3 usually stays in the day room to look out the window but she was tired so they popped her into bed for a rest but she has a phobia about loud noises and she's in a room with me, poor old thing.

I do not go down there for one Saturday and she's in a mess. Where's this, where's that, try that box, try that bag (the bag was very trying) until she had everything she needed. Then I started with the tidying up and throwing out and the taking home for later. If I cut out the card images, it saves time and cuts down the paper mess and any card not suitable, I tear up and she can't have it back.

So we have a full room with me, two visitors for mum and the tea lady and the residents cat. The cat is hilarious, they have one Christmas tree up in the foyer and the cat can see it but can't get to it and he has tried every which way. There'll be no tree in the day room this year with the cat wanting to climb and one of the residents has a habit of trying to eat anything shiny (a new one).

By the time I left, there were 3 empty plastic bags and 1 empty green bag which I filled with all the stuff she wanted taken home, books, cards to cut up, magazines, picture frame (she wants a smaller one). Great, I'm wasted, loaded down with two bags and the taxi is a wheelchair maxi taxi. The driver offers to help me in. I needed a rope ladder to climb up to the first step but I just wanted to get home and unload the garbage.

I woke up this morning with no voice but went on the usual walk for the Sunday papers, had to give the school Christmas fair a miss and I could smell the bbq snags and onions cooking. If only tofu could smell like frying onions and snags, we'd have more vegos. And it rained on me again.

Never thought I'd welcome December

After all the hoo-ha about 11-11-11, I can only say it was an excuse for every psychotic nitwit to crawl out from underneath their rocks and annoy me including my own family. It looks like they're going to keep going right into 2012.

I have been trying to dry out since Wednesday when I was caught in every major downpour the sky decided to dump on Melbourne. I can count on Saturday's downpour as well which kept me bailed up in the hotel with an unvisited list of bead and chocolate shops. But Wednesday had to be the best. Picture four of us huddled together at the bus stop under umbrellas which kept the top half reasonably dry but the bottom was filling faster than Lake Eyre. The only bloke in the group had his shoes filling from the water running down his trousers. I couldn't find enough curse words for a cheap made in China for Avon umbrella which, if it wasn't pushed into the wind blew itself inside out with great ripping and shredding. My fault for not taking the big Australian made beauty but who thought that stepping out the front door in sun meant rounding the corner into the Cape of Storms.

2kms to Doc Marvin, where he laughed off the double figures in the BGL book because I tried to beat the anxiety and panic attacks by going way out of my comfort zone. Kindly gave me two sterile bottles in a big bio-hazard bag in return for the jam jar full of top quality non-Perrier water. No infection and no sugar despite the big 72 hour readings.

Over to the bus stop then, I mean I was already wet and walking home would soak me as much as going on to mother but Miss O'Dyne had sent her a letter and she does love a letter to open. A big thanks to Miss O'Dyne from mother (she is available for adoption). Doc Marvin had upped the pain relief again so she was looking a lot better than on Monday. Anyone complaining to me about nurses striking is liable to get kicked since it was an agency nurse who forgot to give the old girl the proper medication on Sunday, that's two Endone now, not the one that you read on the notes the last night you were at the Home. Read notes every time. Stupid! Once the pain runs past the medication, it takes a while for everything to catch up and settle.

I will go down tomorrow because we have a room to ourselves and I don't have to put up with the strangler, mad E who continously mistakes me for husband Murray and drop all her clothes anywhere A, usually near me. I have also been invited to La Porchetta's, the volunteers' afternoon tea, the residents Christmas party, the residents Christmas lunch and, goddess help me, the post Boxing Day BBQ.

All I want for Christmas is a rock, with a very large hole underneath vacated by a November nitwit.

*wanders off singing loudly "I will survive"*

The New Age news

I always grab the free New Age newspaper as I wander past the mystic shop. Apart from the money makers of self help seminars, I quite often find a snippet that's worth thinking about.

So taking a small sample from a large article on remembering who we really are before this incarnation. The reason we don't remember who we are before reincarnation, is that our souls are made to drink from Lethe, the river of forgetfulness which prevents us from remembering past lives and the current life purpose. Apparently we are supposed to search for it.

"Modern neuroscience reveals to us that the conscious mind is only able to process about 2000 bits of information per second whereas the total mind - subconscious and unconscious is processing something more like 4 billion.

What this means is that what you perceive reality to be creates your reality. So, the existential philosopher Descartes actually had it wrong I think when he wrote, "Cognito ergo sum" - "I think therefore I am". In fact it should be, " I believe, therefore I am".

By believing reality to be a certain way, your subconscious mind actively filters out anything that doesn't fit. So the 2000 bits of information that your conscious mind gets will neatly reflect your fixed view of the world." (article by A. C. Ping)

I'm not much good at Philosophy or wending my way through a 2000 bit mind but "I believe, therefore I am" seems to fit into our world more than it did in Descartes time. Considering the small educated class at that time, there weren't too many thinkers thinking beyond the next meal. Animals think, therefore they are but do animals believe? Well that's as far as I got when the gin ran out so enlightened commenters, your views are welcome. Which is the correct interpretation?

And my previous incarnation, a Druid Oracle in the far far past, I cheated on drinking the water.

It's not a meteorite until it hits us.

This year's November 18 Leonid meteor shower had to cope with bright moonlight but even that didn't stop the photo of this brilliant meteor fireball. Leonid meteors fall at this time every year as the Earth passes through the particles of dust of the Tempel-Tuttle comet.

The image was taken by Juergen Rendtel in the western skies over the Canary Island Observatorio on Tenerife. The smaller insets show the smoke trail of the meteor.

Leonid meteors usually enter the atmosphere at nearly 70 kilometres per second. In the frame are the stars of the constellations Orion and Taurus and that very bright Moon.

Hard to think, it must be Christmas

Yes, stupid Christmas coming right up my bumper.
No problems about where I'll be for the lunch and post lunch will be the local pub.
Now there are a few things before I forget.

One: watch handling the kettle, the same one I haven't cleaned since I set it on fire, but it got its revenge by falling on the floor full of boiling water. No slippers, bare feet, no dressing gown, thin nightdress. Fortunately I jumped back as it hit the floor and only copped some on the foot, a bit up the thigh and my little finger. Threw off the nightie and jumped straight into a warm shower.
I still haven't cleaned the kettle.

Two: Has anyone had an email from a stranger who asks to be your latitude friend? I had 3 of these, the latitude is given as the same as mine and is a google feature. I've never heard of it, is it a facebook thing? He's been thrice deleted.

Three: I going away for the weekend. I'm staying out overnight, in a hotel and it has a bar. Given the price of cocktails these days, I won't be getting wasted. I might even have to smuggle in my own Bombay Sapphire disguised as Evian Water. I finally get to use my overnight luggage with the handle and the wheelies and my travel umbrella. My travel dreams of going to England for a Hindu/English wedding where the guests were being transported to the reception by horse and carriage was bombed by a mother crisis. I must remember to hide diary and journal considering the remarks about family and BOH's girlfriend.

Four: Mother is in a lot of pain in the left arm, mastectomy arm. Doc Marvin has told her it's nerve pain from arthritis but it could be something else. She's not asking, we're not asking or telling if we do ask so she's floating along on a cloud of morphine. She must feel better as she was out to lunch yesterday while I was home eating a baked bean sandwich. Sister wants to bring in a pain expert which is fine by me but she's dismissed Doc Marvin and the D.O.N of the nursing home and says she'll make the arrangements first. Colour me stupid but shouldn't it be discussed with the doc and the d.o.n first? Polite, yes? She actually forbade me to say anything to either of these people who are doing their best for the old girl. And to top it off, she tells me to make a list of when mum's conditions (all of them?) started and what medication she's taking.
Riiiiiight, not a chance, I'm, that's right ME is going to say NO. For a start I don't know what medication she's on because the account from the pharmacy uses the real name of the drugs not the brand name.

Five: I had a night out on the 12th November with her and the BOH and the girlfriend. I was told beforehand that it wasn't going to be an early night which was great for me, I had a ride home, no taxi drama and I knew everyone there. I haven't photos yet but when they lit the bbq, 10 kookaburras lined up along the fence and they don't mind that the place is vegetarian, they'll eat anything and they even endure the human patting that went on, all for food.
So I'm happy in my special chair that doesn't require a crane to haul me out of, enjoying the slide show, not drinking but I really couldn't avoid the maryjane haze from the 3 uni students beside me and up comes sister and says we're leaving. It's 10 p.m. ffs but she's drunk all her cans from the chill bag, bored with the slides, didn't like one of the uni girls who she said was going to get aggressive from the MJ she was smoking and was going NOW. So I was home by 11.30 watching a movie and wondering why in the hell I didn't smack her in the mouth and stay until my usual 2 a.m. departure. It took a damn lot for me to go in the first place, I haven't been anywhere since the last time I was there in March and she ruined it. I really need some assertiveness training. I should have known when she made a snotty remark before I'd even left home. So I 've spent a week cutting out things for ma's Christmas cards and the floor looks like snow, big deal. I'll vac when I'm finished and that includes washing her son's clothes as well.


Six: I don't have depression, at least not enough to take the anti-depressant medication Doc Marvin gave me. It takes 3 weeks for the good times to kick in but 3 days in and I was thinking, if it's this bad to get on them what kind of Hell is it to get off them. I just upped my anti-anxiety tabs to two and I'm feeling better. In fact, I realize just how hard I've been doing life by trying to stay on one tablet. The blood glucose was levelling until sister stress started on me so now it's all over the place again. But I'm not depressed, just a little down from stress eating two blocks of chocolate but at least I didn't drink an entire chill bag of beer.

Seven: So while I was trying to blog and procrastinating by tidying up around the computer (hoping to find a dropped $50 note) I found this, it has a date on the back from last December but I don't remember it at all still an appropriate time to find it.
*I am responsible for the thoughts I think and the things that I choose to pay attention to and my actions that follow..it's only a thought!
* My emotional well-being is more important than everyone else's bad behaviour.
*My emotional well-being depends on remaining true to my deepest core values.

Eight: I will be out of my comfort zone for two days.
Overmedicating on pills and Bombay Sapphire worked for Hemmingway until he shot
himself.
Sometime between now and never, I fully intend to flatten my sister.

Moonbow

This is the waterfall of Skogarfoss in Iceland and it's not the sun that's creating the rainbow but the water droplets from the falls being illuminated by the full moon which is creating a moonbow.

Above the falls you can see an Aurora faintly lighting the sky and look closer to see the stars of the Big Dipper, part of the constellation of The Great Bear or Ursa Major.

It's a jungle out there but inside I have a garden.

Just pop round the back of the shack. The front's not much, all the action is around the corner.

Mind the climbing rose over the abour and across the pergola, heading for the roof.

Ignore the cat. If you pat its stomach the drama queen will follow you all day.

There's nothing to compare with the scent of red roses in bloom except perhaps Lavender.

I have Terrariums hanging from the shady trees. All very Victorian but no trouble.

Lovely lilac lobelia spreading everywhere and crushing the weeds. I do hate weeding.

Here comes the dog with its bone. He's heading for the Marigold patch. I don't know why he bothers he never finds the bones again. I suppose it's a dog thing.

Don't they look shiny and happy until he lands right in the middle of them.

Why are the chickens hanging off the rotary line? You may well ask and I'll tell you, it's a short cut over the chickenwire to the strawberry patch. Whoever said cluckers were dumb.

Fat and delicious, just ripe for the picking. And shaded by the big tree we're treading softly by.

It's a lovely tree but we don't want to wake the boys before nightfall. They get crabby.

They look a bit dopey in daylight but I haven't had a rat or snake problem for yonks.

And the flitter of dragonflies means we're coming to the fish pond. No pristine water for this garden, a bit of slime and lots of strange life.

Water beetles and swamp flowers galore. I never wonder about what has hatched, I'd rather not know.

I can never tell whether they are funny frogs or salamanders so I just refer to them as wobegongs. They like the slimy end of the pond to hide eggs.

Plenty of bullrushes to hide the fish. I have no idea what they're called, survivors, if they live in my pond.

More fish, more bullrushes, no Moses.

Coming right along now, mind the slime and muck and the wobegongs and take a look at the wonderful fungi.

Nature's brilliant and great fun if you poke the puffy bits with a stick. Probably poisonous.

And the best part of the garden is here. Never mind those poncy 'bottom of the garden fairies', they packed up and left when the dragon arrived. He sort of dropped in one day, landed on his head and decided to stay. Keeps the damned chickens in line.

And there you have it, my garden.

Feel free to visit any time.

Anybody home?

Nearly back to blogging.
Another visit to Doc Marvin tomorrow.
Granddaughter's 18th Birthday tomorrow.
Kim Kardashion, dill.
72 days of marriage and I could tell in 72 hours that I wanted out of mine.
In fact, walking into the church it was 72 seconds.
Cup Day always brings back bad memories.
I dreamt last night that someone was trying to smother me with a pillow.
The night before I dreamt of someone who insisted his hand hadn't been cut off despite the bleeding stump.
I really do need to see Doc Marvin, pronto.

I missed it!

My blogaversary, October 3. Well I did have a lot on my mind but miss an opportunity to celebrate with cake.
Posting this just in time for morning tea so tuck in, don't mind manners not with my lot of commenters.
Sponge, raspberries, cream and three lovely layers.
I'll just pop out and get the paper plates and polish the silver cake forks, the large ones.
Thank goodness I didn't burn a hole in the kettle and I hope you like the Earl Grey tea.
Don't drop crumbs (with this lot,unlikely) the cat isn't here to snuffle them up.
Well, don't just stand there, get into to it.

A long wait for sanity

Well on the way back now, in part to River for giving me this award. I am supposed to give it out to more friendly bloggers which I would do if River hadn't beaten me to most of my favourite bloggers. So I am going to award it to a non blogger but prolific commenter until he is barred from commenting which happens frequently. To Robbert, poet, pest, all round fiend from Hell about certain issues but a story teller of old Melbourne life that should be blogged. I know he can be extremely nasty and deserving of a whack around the ears but in the best Elizabethan style, he threw down his cloak to protect me when, as a newby blogger, I was attacked by a right wing woman hating swine. Take your award, Rochester, Lord of Literature and Song.

It has been a while since I blogged. I'd sit down ready to write and the mind would go blank, so blank I'd be sitting here an hour later watching my pictures screensaver. First time for years I'd thought of giving it all up. The cause of all this was an outbreak of air-bourne gastro at the Home and it going into lockdown with requests to visitors to stay away. Oh joy, a whole week, at least, all to myself. Just me, me, me, me.

Well, me crashed and burned. For two days I barely left the bed except to eat, take the BGL and pee. I slept for almost 48 hours. I had pushed myself above and beyond and when I could stop, I hit a brick wall I didn't expect. Doc Marvin said it was natural. Doc Marvin also understood when I told him that going to the Home with the new arrivals had brought up a lot of bad memories of being locked up with the mother from hell for three years. She doesn't remember anything but I did and I could put it out of my mind at seeing her being so happy and alive until a month ago when I was reminded of the recent past.

I have also been plagued by dreams and memories surfacing from some parts of the brain non-active for years. I was advised by someone, not someone I remember, but the advice remains.
Sit in a quiet place (hard when I had 4 cats, 3 dogs, 2 boys and a marriage to a moron of the first water so that gives you an idea of how long ago I was given this advice).
Imagine the top of your head opening up and letting the warmth and light of the sun flowing in.
Imagine the light moving through your brain, down alleyways, stairs, around corners, down into the deepest parts that never see light.
Let the light open every closed door, light up every secret behind each door, look at every secret in bright sunlight.
After looking at each secret, deal with it rationally then let the sun destroy the darkness.
Whatever you cannot deal with, put back in the dark but never shut the door, leave a small sliver of sunlight to show you the way when you can deal with it.

I'm now beginning to think I have a brain full of swiss cheese holes of sunlight considering what has been surfacing lately. I don't deal in 'what if's', what happened, happened, what caused it, whose fault it was, doesn't matter. What matters is to acknowledge the blame belongs to all concerned, not to me exclusively. I was a cog in the wheel of life and sometimes I jammed it and sometimes I let it run away with me. Sometimes it just ran right over me and left me broken.

I believe the crash and burn was a rehearsal and a warning of what could happen, if I let it, for when my mother goes and I'm facing my life with me. At least I know I won't be putting anyone through the same thing when I depart. Departure time is planned for just after my 110th birthday, I have a lot of catching up to do and I'll need the extra time.

Aurora

This spectacular Aurora was taken by Antony Spencer from Gillingham, Dorset. The image is beautiful enough but the streak of light almost centre is a Draconid meteor.
A fluke shot as the Draconid meteors show up once every seven years but a great photograph.

Never take the piss

out of an ageing bearded aristocratic failed lothario who is in the middle of the equivalent of the medieval 100 years war with AGL.

Because MiLord Sedgwick will take out his AGL voodoo doll and stick it with a large pin bearing your name and AGL Karma will then sneak up and bite you on the backside. In my case the backside is so large I hope AGL chokes on it.

After managing to get a $30 refund from the incomps in charge, I noticed they hadn't taken out my direct debits last pension day. A pension day payment that for me is set in stone but set in marshmallow for AGL. To give me a refund of someone else's DDs, they turn off my DDs first and I am supposed to be a mind reader and remind them to turn the DDs back on.

So another call to the accounts department. A department that now has account experts to deal with complaints like mine. DDs are turned back on for the 21st of October and I am assured that none will come out before that, like pension day this week which isn't my pension day.

The money will stay in the bank until the day after the 21st, in case the nuts didn't pass the message on to the squirrels.

A nice cold beer.

Actually it was 3 nice cold beers and I must do it more often since I won on the pokies instead of losing. It's better than LSD, a beer goes straight to my head and all those spinning wheels makes pretty whirly pictures and I can fall off my chair if I don't hang on.

I did have a good reason to be at the pub all afternoon. I intended to do the shopping at Southland but guess where all those kids who were at the show last week ended up today.
Millions of the noise machines in all directions. I came in through the theatre entrance to head for San Churro's and a large cake but they were in there, in Macca's, in the pasta bar, in the sushi bar and the wall of noise would have gladdened the heart of Phil Specter.

I stocked up on the essentials, credits on the phone, tranquilizers and a block of chocolate and my knee ran off its track. So I'm in the pharmacy also known as Robber Baron Central ($34!) bashing it back to its proper place and gave up on the idea of any shopping. They were downstairs at some cartoon concert, upstairs at a lego contest and finger painting on everywhere. The noise, OMG, the noise. One more shrill scream up the back of my neck from some little ferret who couldn't get it's own way and nobody would have had to watch "The Slap" on the ABC.

I'm home now, it's all quiet and I have to do it again tomorrow but I'm going very early and running fast. Then just to put myself in harm's way, I'm heading for the home with a load of goodies for Ma who informs me tonight that tomorrow is going to be another sewing bee. Like Hell, I will bandage every finger if they even try to hand me a needle. I've spent two weeks doing jewellery for the auxillary and pink ribbon day. I think I'm the only member of the auxillary now, the last lady resigned a year ago when she hit 95 and couldn't see her knitting needles move.

Anyway they'll all be tired because they went to Mornington on a bus today, had lunch in the pub, enjoyed the sunshine and the new driver was great, to the extent of driving them on to look at Sorrento because he had the time and they'd paid for his lunch. Nice bloke, didn't drive them far enough, they made it back.

Rational thinking.

A small victory, AGL refunded the $30 it took out of my account and in only 3 days.
Since it was coming but not in the account yet, I deliberated about buying a new book.
I mean it's a book on 'Sea Glass', big with pictures.

$37.40.

4 copies of New Scientist which I read and keep one article.
3 copies of Gourmet Traveller which I read but am too lazy to cook from.
10 copies of trashy gossip tabloids which takes me 10 minutes to read.
1 box of chocolates from San Churro. Not allowed.
1 meal at the Pub.
10 minutes on a pokie machine.

Up against a book that I will read at least 5 times the minute I get it and will keep for the next ten years and look at constantly.
I really need it, I don't know enough about sea glass except for one post I made here.

It will make me happy, $37.40 for a happy.
Click Buy.
Yes, the happy is kicking in immediately.

Dog walkers beware!

This council has regulations regarding dog walking.
One of them is to take a plastic bag and pick up the poop.
So if you walk the dog all the way to the park and back past my house, why in the hell don't you keep going with the plastic bag to your house instead of propping the poop in the crook of the tree on my nature strip?

There are some who don't bother with the plastic bag but sneak out in the night to visit poop central. Once you could safely walk the footpaths with your eyes closed but not any more. And I worry about a dog that can't hold on long enough to reach the grass. Is it being dragged along without a pit stop?

We never had this problem and every house had a dog but it pooped inside the boundary and we buried it in a corner of the garden. Of course if you choose to live in an Australand shoe box, after a while you'd be pooped out of garden.

So it gets me thinking of 'Teh Olden Days". The days of dogs, horses and humans and outhouses and horse manure, dog poop and filthy footpaths and long sweeping skirts. The rich walked straight from the front door to the carriage. The rest walked along gathering crap like street sweepers and no holding up the skirt, not a glimpse of ankle or one was marked as not quite the lady. They did have dust ruffles sewn along the bottom of the skirt which was emptied like a dust buster or the lady's maid would remove the dirty ruffle and replace it with a clean one.

Well, you all know my mind enough by now to know that all I could think about on the way back from the coffee shop was dust ruffles full of dog poop. And don't get me started thinking about those damn deep treads in jogging shoes.

Spring is really here, daylight saving and my first cockroach in the junkmail.

And some sort of football ended.

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.