It's just another day

It's that day again where I go into the streets and frighten the horses by wobbling the wrinkles at them.

Is it champagne and cake, no, it's visit with Mummy day where she gets to remind me how old I am.

I did have one bit of luck, the BOH has left a can of vodka at the back of the fridge and it's all mine.

Do you realize that because it's my birthday it means that this year is past the half way mark to 2013?

Oh well, another day older and deeper in debt.

When all's said and done, the only age I'd go back to is 2004 when I'd lost 20 kgs and the housework was done and I could leap tall buildings with a single bound.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

I'm still breathing and sniffing and coughing.

Damn virus seems to have embedded itself in my DNA much like the malware which is still haunting the rootkit defying all attempts to dislodge it from the computer.

I was okay yesterday but today the squeak is back in my lung and the headache is warming up at the back of my eyes.

I haven't seen the baby yet nor has anyone sent photos via email.  Stupid iphones that take photos, doesn't do me any good unless I receive one or two via computer.  I am still waiting for the chipboard and mattress to be removed so I can get into that room and fold up the sofa then I can pack up the rest of his clothes and shut the door on the last two years.  Mind you, his habit of dropping change anywhere near the bed was handy if I only had large notes for the taxi fare, a bit of scrabbling around and I could usually count on 5 dollars in hand.

I've tried shopping on line again but it's not really working for me. Okay for when I don't feel well like the last three weeks but I'm still off to Southland tomorrow for bits and pieces. There's no provision for ordering one of something, like one carrot and last time I ended up with 10 tomatoes and 5 zucchini and how do I get across that I only need a really tiny piece of pumpkin.  I have a feeling that two bags that arrived this morning were not mine, I didn't order two bottles of White King toilet cleaner nor stir fry vegetables, stir fry Chinese greens, yes and they were on the delivery list.  And I do like my bread to be square not squashed into several different shapes which I have to straighten out before it goes in the freezer.

I've also had three phone calls asking for my ex-husband.  I didn't bother to ask what they wanted except for the one this morning.  Terrific, I'm really going to put my trust in Origin power when they don't know the real owner of the house and they want to speak to the man of the house instead of the woman answering the call.

I really think that this time I was entitled to tell them to piss off.

I am reading blogs but commenting needs a full brain and mine's off somewhere waiting for spring. I'm also reading books but biographies make me feel inadequate and television seems to have nothing but "fat people are killing the earth" stuff on but I am waiting for the finale of Masterchef to see who gets the gong. I watch it because all that hard work makes me to lazy to cook anything beyond toast and vegemite or boiled eggs.

Not watching the Olympics either.

Not eating chocolate, can't taste it.  

Chocolate eclair, two weeks ago was delicious. I'm living on the memory of it.

Damn virus.

I am sick of running eyes, clogged up running nose, sneezes that could power a jet engine, coughing up bits of lung and headaches. 

Mind you I have developed a rapid response reflex with my thigh muscles when I feel a sneeze coming on otherwise it would be Depends time.

The damn virus has entrenched itself like the stinking bit of malware that is still hiding in a rootkit in the middle of the computer. I keep killing off bits of it so the malware tells me but it must regenerate overnight, much like this rotten cold.

This is the first time I've been able to sit at the computer without wanting to fall off the chair. Actually my chair by the fire is the place where I've done most of my sleeping and coughing.

The little mother finally left hospital today and the BOH has gone over to stay with her.  They kept the baby in because he wasn't feeding well but he's got the hang of it now. I'm waiting on photos to post of something that is only 43 centimetres long and my computer monitor is longer than that. I can't remember them being so small.

Anyway there seems to be some movement on the house front, thank goodness.

Poor me, I can't go to see mother until I feel this virus is gone, about two months should do it.

I still say Werther's Original toffees are the best for the throat followed by Fisherman's Friend.  And if you do buy the FF, read the packet because now they have a ziplock top, found that out after hacking at it with the scissors at the wrong end.

And just to liven things up, the new smartmeter is in and I can't understand a word of the instructions.  The gum tree across the street has busted up the watermains again and this time the stupid Council should take it down.  It's the third time it's happened but they keep insisting it's a tree of note and is on the register. The electricity choppers keep taking out the centre away from the lines but it just means the branches are growing across the road my way and across the inground pool the other way.  A bit of common sense would be nice but we are dealing with the local council here.

It's like trying to deal with a virus, you get nowhere fast.

Sick, real sick not 'fully sick'

Mother has been very generous with her germs.  My chest refuses to breathe properly and someone has poured broken glass down my throat. Every arthritic part of me is hurting.

And we are still waiting on the baby to arrive.  Little mother was supposed to be induced yesterday but it was cancelled because there were too many babies in the nursery.  It is now on the agenda for this afternoon.

They are still homeless and what did I say back in January?  No landlord is going to rent to a pregnant unmarried female on a pension.  Now her parents are running round looking for homes for them.
I could cheerfully beat the lot of them with a fence post...and laugh.....hysterically.

Now going to have honey in hot water, no lemon juice, it hurts too much.   And diabetic or not, I can live on tea and toast with vegemite.  And while Miss O'Dyne swears by vinegar and salt crisps to kill germs, it is a shop too far to walk to. 

I will be back sometime with news.

I hate July.

It's only the 5th day.

My Mother is very ill with lung rot which came up in 24 hours.

The expectant mother is in hospital with pre-eclampsia.

The expectant father is falling apart at the seams.

My sister is still telling me that everything will come right.

I just hope the pub doesn't burn down and crash the pokies.

And there was fog this morning and 4.6 temperature.

All I did was turn a corner...

I've had some weird experiences in my life, a 30 year marriage for starters but yesterday was out of the ball park.
I know of a love triangle.
I know one side of the triangle.
I've heard about one side of the triangle.
But yesterday I was talking to a stranger who nearly ran over my foot with her bicycle and discovered that she was the missing side of the triangle.
Do I have a face that invites salacious gossip to be downloaded to my mind in a voice that richoceted round Mentone, through Coles and up to the station to catch a train?
I've never seen the woman before and I've been wandering those streets for 3 years.
It started innocently enough, bicycle, running over, apologize and did I see Australian Story about Diana Bliss?
I meant to but I was cruising Space in Babylon 5 at the time.
We agreed she was a poor soul, very ill and goddess only knows why she married him because love is definitely deaf, dumb and blind.
Well, she had been in that situation herself, loved someone, had a child, engaged to be married and jilted and all her money couldn't stop him pissing off with a brainless tart.  Know the feeling, thinks I.
And she couldn't understand being left for some fat unlovely creature of the underclass when she herself was elegant and refined and wealthy.
The name of the fat unlovely creature was mentioned.
GASP, CHOKE, ROAR OF LAUGHTER.
Yes, dear Madam (lipstick running into the channels of her wrinkly mouth) I know her well.
She lives at the nursing home two ticks from where we are standing.
Where she is always moaning that the worse thing that happened, besides the MS, was the death of her darling husband.
Apparently darling husband hadn't told her he was leaving her and going back to the other side of the triangle and in fact had been going off with the triangle every time wife had trundled off to respite care.
He died of a massive heart attack while packing the car prior to piss off.
Triangle Three was in respite care and came straight to the Home.
Missing part of the triangle asked if his brother and sister cleaned out the house which I knew they had.
MPotT said they'd have gone into the roof and under the floorboards since they knew where he used to keep all his cash.  A lot of which came from the sale of the pre-marriage home of him and MPotT because she was wealthy and so was her mother and her grandmother.
Have I mentioned that MPotT had a son to Triangle One?
According to my mother, Triangle Three has no idea that there was a son.
According to my mother Triangle Three was a virgin when she married Triangle One after knowing him six weeks.
According to MPotT the only thing Triangle Three had going for her was her rep for being the best back of Ute R--t.
And so, dear readers, Triangle One mended fences with MPotT saying that he had made a terrible mistake and married the wrong woman and now wanted a happy ending.
Karma bites.
Triangle One falls to heart attack.
MPotT lives to tell tale to strangers but all her money (and apparently ex-husbands) can't erase a face full of wrinkles due to years of loathing at being left for a non-entity with a bum like a working bullock. (it's here that I begin to care, she says I am overly large but extremely elegant for it)
Triangle Three has progressing MS but before you thing I am cruel, she is nothing like our lovely Elephant's Child who disregards her MS in order to help other people.  TT is, and I suspect, always has been a whiner and a bit on the mean side.
MPotT from now on is going to be looking out for TT as she passes every Cafe in Mentone.
Revenge is never pretty but it is going to be entertaining.

July, how come it's July?

July 1st, damn, 30 days to go before another birthday.

The homeless are still homeless.

July 1st, are you sure?

The last week has gone past very quickly but July already.

I know it's winter, walking to the corner shop for the paper almost led to frostbite this morning.

Even the spiders are looking for warm spots but did the Huntsman have to drop in my cloak to find it. He was lucky when he bounced off the boobs that I didn't step on him but he was so big it would have taken an industrial vaccy to get the remains out of the carpet.

July, I was sure I had more time before I left 63.

I'm supposed to be typing out the minutes of the meeting of relatives and residents at the Home but my fingers won't work properly which probably has something to do with the brain freezing and my feet have no feeling.

I have an invite to a party on the 21st of July. Upwey, Dandenong Ranges Upwey.  It's July, it's freezing in Cheltenham in July, up there it snows in July.  Anyway I'm not going unless they have a cake for me too.

Arthritis hates July, my bones complain. I can hear them whining through the blubber. Inuits say blubber keeps you warm in winter.  I can tell you it's not doing much for me.

I had a 15 minute fight with a new pack of clingwrap this morning.  For years I have been opening packs of clingwrap and never needed an instruction book until now.  You cannot just flip up the lid, you have to cut along the edge and don't use one finger, you'll have a paper cut to the bone. Take out the clingwrap and follow the red arrow to find the edge of the plastic and remember to swear when the red arrow breaks before that happens.  Drag cling wrap out and try to tear along serrated edge which isn't there. But there it is underneath the cardboard belonging to the flip up lid you've just cut through.  Rip off cardboard, remember there is a steel edge there.  Yes, you can swear when you forget and slice through another finger. When did 'elf and safety go insane on clingwrap?

It isn't raining but I'm on the third bucket of dripping water from the spouting near the front door. I should move all three as the letter informing me about the installation of my smart (?) meter  (due next week) says the installer should have clear access to the meter box.  Always helpful I am but in this case the bastard can trip over and drown.

Besides I'm busy removing craft and beading magazines from the study. It's finally penetrated to my frozen brain that I can scan what I want to CD and view it on my little viewer when I am back in my work room sometime in the coming decade.  Fifty magazines gone through and another 40 to go. They're damn heavy or I'm getting too old to be picking up heavy magazines.  Anyway it is one of those sitting down by the fire jobs just perfect for winter.

It's almost the anniversary of the passing of the cat.  My gas bill is down because I'm not getting up at 6 to put the fire on for the frosted moggie.  The BOH is still mourning and homeless. 

So now I'm going to have a drink.  The orange tree at the back door is laden and the fruit is ice cold, about the only good thing about July so far.

The art of theft.

I've been reading a book about art theft and very interesting it is. So many paintings gone and so few recovered but I'm not talking about Napoleon's scroungers or Hitler's henchmen, ordinary thieves.

One surprising fact was that very few women are art thieves or we're clever enough not to be caught.

Another is that rarely is a painting stolen to order these days unless it's a specific grouping of subjects.

The news of a theft of a valuable piece of art give the organised art thieves world wide publicity regarding its monetary value.  The paintings are then used as collateral to buy drugs, guns or whatever they want. Some ransoms are still paid by insurance companies but many disappear and are never seen again.  And it's not only paintings.

Jonathon Tokeley-Parry had a neat antiquities smuggling racket going for him in the early 1990s.  He bought artifacts and after dipping them in clear plastic, he painted them to look like cheap gaudy tourist souveniers. Custom officials on the lookout for the real deal didn't catch on.  Tokeley-Parry transported many artifacts including a $1.2 million sculptured head of the Egyptian pharoah Amenhotep 111.  He created a provenance for his stolen goods in the form of the non-existent Thomas Alcock Collection.

His attention to detail included aged labels made by copying old pharmaceutical labels onto rough paper, baking them and finishing the ageing process by daubing them with teabags.

He was eventually caught and tried in England, copping a 3 year sentence.  The Egyptian authorities weren't as lenient, they sentenced him to 15 years hard labour, to be served if he ever set foot in their country again.

Henry Moore's bronze "Reclining Figure" weighed in at 2.7 tons.  On December 15, 2005, a team of thieves driving an old style Austin mini cooper followed by a stolen flatbed truck with a crane, hoisted the 11 foot long sculpture on board and left.  Estimated value in 2006 was 5.2 million dollars.  

In 1997, Gustave Klimt's "Portrait of a woman" was taken from the Galleria Ricci Oddi, Piacenze, Italy.

The gallery was closed for renovation so guards assumed the 60 by 55 cm painting had been put in storage.

The thief had simply climbed onto the roof, opened a skylight and used a fishing line to hook the painting off the wall.  He left the frame on the roof. 

Art theft is a lot harder to pull off these days, from Galleries that is, private homes, small museums or churches are still vulnerable. Remember that next time you can't see a painting for the bullet proof glass or the alarm sensor that goes off if you go 1 cm over an invisible line and don't pick your nose, the cameras are everywhere.  But as values increase stealing art is still worth the risk even if Auction houses have computer listings of everything known to be missing.  Of course war is a great cover for theft, loot from the Iraq war is still surfacing.

One last interesting fact.  The Mona Lisa only became popular after Vincenzo Peruggia lifted it from the Louvre in 1911.  Until the painting was found two years later in Florence, crowds came in greater numbers to stare at the empty space on the wall.

To get this image the astrophotographer waited two years for the sky and clouds to be just right on a clear and moonless night.
At the Piton de l'Eau on Reunion Island, Luc Perrot was lucky.  In the foreground is a water filled volcanic crater and above are hundreds of stars including the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy. 

I needed something beautiful like this after seeing photographs of Aunt Selma today.  Mum's 82, identical sister is the same age, she just looks 100.  I would have passed her on the street and not known who she was and to think, she always said she was the prettier one. So my sisters in blogging, don't smoke, don't lose weight and purge mean thoughts and deeds from your mind or you're going to look 100 when you're only 82.  

The Home was such a pleasure this afternoon, NOT.  The full moon isn't until July 4 so I can only assume they're getting in some practice before the gleaming globe hits the night sky and unlike the image above, it ain't gonna be pretty.

Eva got hit by a truck yesterday. I'd believe it, trucks go through the day room all the time and it would explain the over the top fruitcake performance excelled only by quiet Eddy who, since his fall out of bed, has developed the language of a wharf labourer with a smattering of sheep shearer.  He wandered into the day room in full voice, sat down at the piano, belted the keys and slammed the lid shut.  That didn't take the edge off his mood so he did it several more times while mum and I waited for him to lose his fingers.

The escapee has slowed right down, now in a tub chair and gone into the twilight zone.  We lost Sheila last week and old Joe fell out of bed and lost his eye but he didn't mind, it was the one he couldn't see out of.

And the gold fish died.  I think Aunt Selma looked at it and turned it to stone.  Now I am a caring person but my care tank is running on empty tonight.  No doubt I look 90.  I'll look a 100 if the homeless are still homeless when he gets home.

Taxi drivers

Taxi drivers have taken quite a beating over the last week, thankfully none of them were my regular drivers around Cheltenham and Mentone.  We must be more placid here.  Yesterday though I was witness to a very rude display to a driver.  Freezing cold, raining cats and dogs so I was pleased to see a line of taxis when I came out of Southland on my way to see mother.
A taxi pulls up, the mother with child in front of me takes a step forward as the driver gets out to help her with parcels.  She takes one look at him and says she'll take the next cab and walks away.
He looks bewildered then asks me if I want a ride.  I'm in the seat like a shot and ready to go. He's a regular driver and asks if I'm going home or going to the Home and asks if I have a problem with him as a driver.  Are you kidding, the man knows exactly where to take me without instructions and not the long way round, knows I hate a right hand turn out of Argus Street into Warrigul Road, stops right at my drive so I have no trouble getting out and is always polite. 
I don't know what nationality he was or is, he had a sort of 4 day beard growth, short hair, no body odour, cab smelt okay so I don't know what the woman's problem was but I think she was very rude.

It has been a monster of a week. My feet are still getting warm and I've only been out to see mother twice.  Usually the Home is too hot but not this week. She's still enjoying the iPad and the staff keep downloading more games for her but angry birds is about all she can cope with although there is some penguin game that's supposed to be fun. And glory be, Fergusson Plarre is open for business again and a custard tart disappeared from the bag faster than lightning. She said lunch was horrible, the tart was welcome and don't forget to bring more.

So I left with the third taxi driver for the day.  He waited patiently while I negotiated his new fangled high off the ground cab.  Instead of being able to just pull my feet in, there is some sort of ledge so I have to lift the feet in.  Difficult when carrying two bags and levering the lardarse onto the seat. Another nice bloke who knew the area and I had no problems with him.  Mind you I wouldn't take the job if it was the last one on earth.

All the circles, round and round

So June, 17, 2012, one of those circles in the image above, just pick one and touch it anywhere. The beginning and end is the same. June 17, 2000 or June 17, 2012 because I'm back exactly where I started. 
I am stressed, weight is back to what it was then, family is irritating me but I haven't seen the ex for 6 years so that is one big good news tick.
June 17, 2000 and I was two weeks into the great freedom of no marriage.  I read constantly in the advice columns that the parties of a disintegrating marriage should see a councellor to make sure they have tried every means to save it and then there are no recriminations.  Yeah, well he skipped all that by just leaving and waltzing into the arms of his blonde.  Karma bites as she is frequently waltzed out of the RSL by the bouncers and poured into his car.  Bwahahahaha.

I was fat, just getting used to walking on two brand new knees, getting over feeling sorry for my ex best friend who had an affair with my ex, (I mean how desperate did she have to be to go with him), and stressed that it might all be a dream and he would come back.  I lost 20 kilos in pure happiness.
That 20 kilos is now back and haunting me.  Not just the stress eating, the expectant family will know if they have a place next week, but the trying to eat 3 very small meals so I can eat 3 very small snacks during the day to regulate the sugar levels.  It isn't working.  And the pills, in 2000, I was taking two in the morning for anxiety and two at night for arthritis, now it's a constant stream of pills and vitamins.  I wake up, reach for the glass and pill, take blood test, take pills for sugar before eating, take vitamins while eating.  Blood pressure pills and more vitamins at night with food. Do I feel better, damned if I know.
I'm still fat, I'm still falling over, I'm still carrying the family around on my back. I'm still looking for that lost freedom of 2000.  I'm heading for another birthday, another fat birthday with no cake.  And I'm thinking, at my age can I afford to sit quietly for a month and just breathe with relief at the silence of a house with just me in it?
That's before I start stripping the wallpaper off the front room, painting the walls and 4 cupboards. To do that I have to unload a bookcase and move a big cupboard full of material so I can get to the walls.  Moving all the sewing and jewellery and craft back in there before I start cleaning the rest of the house.  Moving all the boxes out of the hallway and Feng Shui'ing that space.  I can just spy an empty bookcase over the packed mess, much like peering into a Pharoah's tomb and seeing wondrous things.
A lot of the furniture is moving with the lodger, I will have space.  I will vacuum without needing a contortionist's training. I have already begun the culling of the unwanted or unneeded and I'm being viscious about it.  I just would like that visciousness to include the culling of unwanted blubber around the bumlegsboobs but leave the face alone, I've seen my sister and she's just lost weight but it missed the hips but not the neck. She looks like she's just put on a necklace of dried river beds.

I don't care if I'm fat, I'm as healthy as I'll every be, I'm going grey but I'm really pissed at how fast time is flashing past. I remember everything about June 17, 2000 like it was yesterday. Just don't ask me what happened yesterday.

What was that famous line about removing a priest?

"Obviously you've got to make sure that there are appropriate safeguards taken, but look I think it's very important that we do expand, appropriately, coal mining in Queensland.



"We can't let a green veto stop these projects which are vital for our future prosperity."


Mr. Abbott said this about The Great Barrier Reef.  We should all listen to him because he is in Parliament and wants to be Prime Minister.  And if this is what he thinks as Opposition Leader, imagine what His Creepiness will do if he ever gets his jaws into real power.
 
 
The reef contains:



1,500 species of fish


411 types of hard coral


one-third of the world’s soft corals


134 species of sharks and rays


six of the world’s seven species of threatened marine turtles


more than 30 species of marine mammals, including the vulnerable dugong.


The Royal Navy used to keelhaul miscreants, that is tie rope around them and haul them along the barnacle encrusted hull of the ship and so removing most of the skin and flesh.  So let's put a modern spin on this tried and trusted punishment.  We hang Mr. Opposition by his feet from a small plane and reef haul him the entire length, making sure we take appropriate safeguards for the reef. I mean those ears alone could wipe out several miles of precious coral.
 
Yes, I am in a filthy mood and yes, I detest this man.

The Drifting River meme

1. You're taking a three month holiday, no expenses spared, do you cruise the oceans or fly the skies?



I charter the Queen Mary11. I will have the luxury suites on the upper deck and all my blog mates get the rest of the ship. I order the Captain to cruise the coastlines of Australia (including Tassie) and New Zealand.


2. If you could ask God for one world-wide miracle, what would it be?


Turn the Arms and munitions dealers on the sex and drug traders, all out war with no collateral damage.


3. Would you choose sky diving or deep sea diving? (why?)


Deep sea diving with James Cameron. Well it's a no brainer isn't it? Would you stand around happy knowing I was hurtling towards earth with only a flimsy parachute on my back? It'd be the dinosaurs all over again.


4. Would you choose having your wishes granted or having the power to grant wishes?


Neither, people would hate you either way and who am I to do a goddess out of a job.


5. If you could pick a song to be a world anthem, what would it be?


Just "Imagine"


6. Do you dream in black and white or colour?


Vivid colour and widescreen, fortunately not 3-D.


7. Three-course meals or one-pot dinners?


I can't eat a 3 course meal, it's either entree and pudding or main. When I'm alone, it's everything in the one pot, eat with a fork but don't forget the linen napkin, I do have class.


8. Do you menu plan, shop for two weeks worth of ingredients, then serve up toast and jam for dinner?


Of course not, toast and jam is for afters. After the donuts, spring rolls and anything else I can cram in the microwave.


9. Do you dye your hair a totally different colour from what nature intended?


Dye is such an ugly word. One enhances one's natural colour or the colour one would have had if one had been given a choice.


10. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you choose?


What, move away from Godsowncountry, at least the bit that Gina doesn't own, sorry rent.


11. Do you change your home decor to suit the seasons or do you just leave things as they are year in year out?


If something doesn't stick out like a sore thumb then it's decor'd to perfection. I move nothing, it disturbs the dust bunnies.

Never mind the Sun and Venus.

So I missed the block spot crossing the Sun but I can look at this image for a lot longer and without going blind.  It is a special moon called the Full Strawberry Moon and the Algonquin tribes knew it meant a time to gather ripening strawberries or the Rose Moon in Europe.  In this photo the moon is rising over the Absaroka Mountain Range, Cody, Wyoming.  Copyright to Mack Frost.

As is usual when there is no blogging from the witchy, it means a crappy week or a fall, in this case, both.  Now who would have thought with all my padding in front that I would actually stumble and fall flat on my backside. I really mean stumble, from the lounge door right across the hall until I hit ground zero and imploded about a zillion fat cells.  There must have been some shock since I bum walked all the way to the lounge to crawl up onto a chair when I was two minutes nearer to my bed but then I was facing away from the bedroom and one tends to go in the direction the feet are facing.
And being in nightdress and dressing gown, it took longer than necessary until I thought of taking off the dressing gown.  I hauled myself up on the nearest chair and managed to cut across  four fingers on a sharp edge of a plastic bag containing the drapes still waiting to be put up as soon as the curtain rod is put up.  Not bothering now that the BOH is hopefully moving out, soon or very soon or he will end up a commuting father.
So I'm hurting in several places including the toes on the left foot, right knee and sliced fingers.
Just don't mention the bum.

I haven't heard from mother probably reading her iPad or playing angry birds.  One of the nurses downloaded the game from his iPhone and showed her how to play. She's handling the iPad so well she's reading two books at the same time, depending on her mood.  She gets bored playing Temple Run, zombie apes do nothing for her.  But she's found out how to use the camera by taking photographs of herself and deleting the bad ones.  Who'd have thought I'd be writing about the old girl and Internet technology at her age.

A titillating titbit.

Now this is rooly serious, no laughing matter snigger  (putting on straight face).

Sperm get lost on their way.  Got your attention.....

About 300 million sperm get released by a man during sex (I could make a horror movie out of that) but only a few dozen reach the egg.

Why?

Because sperm have a terrible sense of direction, according to the latest fertility research.
Scientitsts have tracked sperm movement (what do you mean how?  They all have little GPS attached) and found that sperm struggle to turn sharp corners (Que?) and frequently crash into walls and each other.

"Sharp corners", I was sure it was a straight road to Paradise.  "Frequently crash into walls and each other" , oh yeah, well didn't we women always know that Happy Hour at the pub and hooning was inbuilt.

Next thing is live commentary, "Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?  Are we there yet? Watch that sharp cor.......oh crap.

Bwahahahahhahaha.  Men and their boys.

I'm not violent but someone hide the shovel.

This image is from Finnish Lapland, you know the reindeers, snow, snow and more snow interspersed with ice and snow.  It comes down so hard and long that the trees start looking like this, straight out of that Ice World of StarWars, alien giants.  I think they dumped a young James T. Kirk on an ice world so snow and ice equals punishment, on the other hand, Hawaii is for lovely people like me, all sweetness and light.  Finnish Lapland is for family members who are giving me the irrits and for once it isn't my mother.

Thank the blessed IT goddess who invented iPads and zombie games.  It's keeping her amused in between read Pride and Prejudice, page l40 now.  It can catch you out if you aren't careful. Sister was playing with the icons, (something she said mother would never master) and she took her own photo, bwaahahahhahahha.  Up close and personal with her wrinkles, nose hair and no chin. I did her a favour and put it in the garbage bin along with mine, grey hair, wrinkles and 3 chins.

Friday is June and then it's 8 weeks until himbo and dimbo welcome the bambimbo.  If my sister says one more time that everything will work out, just wait and see then I will have to commit fratricide or should that be imbecilacide?  That sounds like something that would work on Abbott.
Back to sister who thinks dimbo's parents should build them a granny flat in their large backyard.....in EIGHT BLOODY WEEKS!!!!!!!  They need to get away from parents, aunts and grannies and start living their own lives.

Which brings me to shovel bashing old blokes who think dole bludgers should be sent to WA to get jobs in the mines.  Nephew is not on the dole for a start.  I really went off trying to tell this idiot how much it cost to get to WA, to live there, to even get a home there, never mind trying to get their families there (don't believe all you see in those mining ads) and then get a job interview hopefully to then get a job.  I hope the old fool watched the news last night to see how many Victorians suddenly lost their jobs yesterday.  Pardon the rant, I don't usually do Politics and stuff but according to ACA and 7.30, dole bludgers go to Byron Bay and live off maryjane and bananas and too much of one or the other causes street fights.  So frustrating dealing with idiots.

Elephant's Child, be a dear and nick over to Parl House and belt Abbott with a shovel, we'll all feel so much better. Come to think of it give one to Hockey, a passing blow to Rudd and mild slap to Jules to get her game up.  Honestly watching Canberra is like watching 6 trainwrecks going to happen and trying to decide which one would be the most fun.

And I need my $250 carbon tax money, I overspent on chocolate  tranquilizers.

Save me, I'm drowning.

This is me contemplating a family massacre if only I could get away with it.
The BOH came home with smile and I'm thinking, they've finallly found a house, unit, tent, anything to live in.
A smile can generate such hope.
And then he says he's bought a bike to ride to work to save money and lose weight!!
It's the middle of fecking winter, okay not quite, just feels like it, it's pouring rain outside and the wind chill would do Everest justice.
His mother thinks it's a grand idea because he is getting a bit big.  He isn't living with her and she's not going to worry about greasy roads and oncoming traffic and he hasn't ridden a bike since he was 16. 
Why didn't he just hire an exercise bike, put it in the carport where he could ride for a couple of hours in the freezing wind but not worry about actually setting wheel upon road?
Because that would be easy and safe.
I haven't seen the bike yet, he hasn't ridden to work yet but he has a helmet.

Here's another image from the Haarbergs from 9,000 feet above Iceland.  We could do a "What is it?", no?  Well the big white bit at the bottom is Langjkull glacier and the rest are small melt water streams. Please for full greatness, do the clicky thing.  I have a wide screen monitor so I turned the image clockwise and it makes a fabulous desktop wallpaper.

I'm back from a visit to the Home.  The Accreditation people said they had to take down the photo of the escapee from the front of the door for his privacy but they were able to leave one on the inside of the door.  Didn't do much good today when he was literally plastered to the glass door with two people inside wanting out and two outside wanting in.  The guy outside with me was a newby and didn't know not to open the door, fortunately people inside could see the photo.  I knocked on the admin window and it took three people to peel him off the door and cart him off to the office.  New guy said why didn't they put a notice on the outside as well. 

Mother extremely happy with iPad, keeps her off the phone to me.

Our big blue Earth.

Jack Cook from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Howard Perlman of USGS made this image of Earth without its water covering. The oceans cover about 70% of the surface but they're shallow compared to the Earth's radius.



That blue spot is made up of all the water and is about 700 kms in radius, less than half the radius of our moon. It doesn't show water that may be trapped beneath the surface and research is still in progress to find out how this much water came to be on Earth in the first place.
 
Spooky!

Engage Warp Drive.

This image was taken by the husband and wife team of Erlend and Orsolya Haarberg at the hot springs of Hveravellir, Iceland. The pink object is not the starship Enterprise but a lenticular cloud and to find out more go to our favourite cloud site and enjoy.  The Harbeergs travelled all over Iceland and on a clear day took to the sky to photograph the land from above, sights we'd never get to see.  When I'm lost for words, I'll post their photographs instead.


Mothers' Day, freezing, stayed in bed and considered myself lucky to find a tin of fruit pastilles, the kind that are covered in cornflour so everyone knows what you've been eating.


Today I saw my mother, never see her on Mothers Day, besides freezing.  My brand new taxi card would not work so I had to pay full price.  Earlier on my Myki wouldn't work, again.  So now two more phone calls to moronic companies who can't keep their software working or get it to work.


Mother, on the other hand, is finding it easy to use her new iPad.  It came with 6 free books and she's up to page 126 of Pride and Prejudice so I won't have to worry about topping up with books immediately.  She finds it better than the mobile phone because of the size and she can't break the buttons off because of the touch screen.  She did ask why parts of it were cloudy and hard to read so I pulled out a hanky and wiped the fingerprints off the screen.


I've mentioned the Home's escapee before but today it was my turn for the vicious little creep's attack.  He threatened me but I don't have a witness because both of the other residents are slightly a lot deaf.  They could see him at the back of me but couldn't hear and neither did they see him shove a plastic plate to my neck.  Then he walked around in front to my mother and I thought if he touches her, I'll deck him but she's used to handling him and I could see his eyes change as Ma talked quietly to him.  I didn't move when he was near me, you can't, any aggressive move makes him worse.  I did report it but not on paper but I am the fourth person he's gone for lately.  At least I wasn't physically grabbed but the others have been.  I'll be seeing the DON at the end of the week and telling her what happened.  None of the old ducks should have to watch their backs when he's around and my mother shouldn't have to the one in the front line fending off his aggressiveness when the others can't.


Happy Elephant's Child who loves the cold, a minus five degrees in Canberra this morning. Please don't move south, I couldn't handle a minus anything.

I loved the ABC's programme of The Diamond Queen.  Need I mention the jools?  But I was impressed by the younger mob, even Beatrice and Eugenie.  William and Harry speak straight, plain English without the uppercrust plum stuck in their throat that Daddy Wales is cursed with. Edward, I liked as well but "air miles Andy" looks and sounds like a buffoon.  I think we can give cudos here for the Duchess of York who has done most of the upbringing of his daughters even if it does look at times as though they can't hold their booze like daddy.

I have at last finished my night time reading of The Three Emperors, a weighty tome that tells the behind the public view of George V, Wilhelm of Germany and Nicholas of Russia.  Willly was a handy bogeyman for the British and American public to blame for the First World War but he lost control of his throne and country the moment the Generals declared war.  George lived the rest of his life with the guilt of not saving the Czar and his family.  But what struck me most was the fact that all three were uneducated and unfit to govern a country let alone reign supreme although George didn't have the power the other two did. Bedtime reading now is the relationships between 3 queens and their daughters,  Catherine of Aragon/England, Marie Antoinette of Austria/France and Victoria of England/Germany.  I try not to read anything exciting before sleep otherwise I don't, I can't put down a mystery thriller so I read those outside the bedroom.  

Well, I think I've mouthed off enough to give Lord Rochester a run for his money and I need food and the last pastille, raspberry.