Are you the 1/100?

Or is it me? **pulls out a fresh tissue and snorts**

For the last week or so, the Crime and Investigation Channel has been advertising an upcoming programme about psychopaths and running a short trailer featuring images of people overlaid with an audio track that for some reasons manages to mention the word psychopath while the screen is filled with a picture of Gee Dubbya.

Is this some form of blatant, latent, very belated piece of electioneering propaganda or just a lucky happenstance? I'd like to think it's the latter.

I said I'd like to, not that I did ;0)

Here is the US trailer for the programme.



After that little number, somehow I found myself drooling over Gary Moore, I mean who wouldn't, right?



and whilst I laxed back to the Blues, I pondered that, if a definition and diagnostic symptoms of psychopathy are to be believed, the goal posts are going to have to be moved on a regular basis because psychopathy looks like the new black. Look at some of these listed traits and then tell me they aren't becoming more prominent in our youth.

Charming, eh.

PS this is a better ending

Hone your black motherfucker

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Once upon a time, we had golliwogs. They were cool. We knew they represented a part of the human population and were held in the hearts of kids everywhere with fondness and affection. One day, someone decided that golliwog was racist and the next thing you know, poof! they weren't allowed in childcare centres, kindergartens, story books and you couldn't buy one in the shops. I don't think you can, even now.

Words like nigger and golliwog became signs of racism and were quickly expunged from the vocabulary of all rational-thinking society.

A bit down the line came laws about racist speech and hate speech and God help anyone who called someone a nigger, let alone a term like black motherfucker.

Last week, one of our non-pink ethnic type MPs got himself into a little spot of bother when he ditched a piece of his tax-payer funded, overseas representative meeting schedule to take a side jaunt to Paris with the missus and followed that with an email conversation with former Waitangi Tribunal director Buddy Mikaere in which showed where this particular MPs sentiments about his white skinned countrymen lie...

The email from Mikaere which drew the vitriolic response started: "Gotta ask the question eh? Who's paying for Hilda?"

The response from Harawira: "Gee Buddy, do you believe that white man bulls*** too do you?

"White motherf*****rs have been raping our lands and ripping us off for centuries, and all of a sudden you want me to play along with their puritanical bulls***."

Harawira added a postscript that he would be happy for the email to be made public: "If you want to take this to the press, go right ahead." more

Now I may be wrong, but if I can't refer to the Hones of the world as niggers or black motherfuckers, how can he get away with calling people white ones? Is that one more insidious little example so rife here of the Maori Double Standard where they want all the White Man's knowledge, his money and special rights as well? How fucking unusual! They scream about stolen land, white man's greed, and happily grow gorse and ragwort of huge tracts of Maori owned property because they are too lazy to clean it up, head into Politics and sponge off everyone with a bottle of piss in one hand and the other grasping anything not moving and then they call US white land-raping rip-off motherfuckers.

Hey Hone, go put on your grass skirt and get back to your pitiful whare on your shared ancestral scrubland and give up all the fancy toys, cars, plane rides, booze, KFC and anything else this white motherfucking race has given your "people" over the last couple of hundred years that your seem to treasure so highly and then you might just see how far Whitey brought a black motherfucker nobody called Hone Harawira.



They didn't have newspapers back then to show the world the opinion of one arsewipe Maori politician (as if anyone would have cared), but then none of them could read, anyway.

He's apologised for the email, but not the sentiments here, and you can read his pretend apology here.

Get a big one up ya Hone, you stink worse than dog shit under my shoe and the whole world knows it. I don't accept your half arsed pretend apology as anything more than what it is - hiding the bodies and wiping up the blood afterward because you fucked up big time. You're not so fucking sharp after all, are you.

##########################################

Too good not to post!

uʍop ǝpısdn

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

I watched a fantastic documentary tonight by Stephen Fry about bi-polar. It was very, very interesting, in some places very moving. Sometimes even I could empathise with Mr Fry's descriptions and I'm not bi-polar (I think it missed me). It gave insight into how one small thing can just fuck up life and turn your world uʍop ǝpısdn. Really.

It made me think about the wider implications of the out-of-warranty breakdown of other body features and the fallout; a path we are all walking in some form or another and I thought of two men whose lives have really been turned uʍop ǝpısdn, each walking the same trail, heading for the same unwelcome destination but chalking different landmarks along the way so they can find their way home.

I salute you both.

PS - Dear Mr Fry. We think you're very cool. Sincerely, Tish.
PPS - Can I have one of your overstocked PCs please? TIA.
PPS - Did I mention cool, yet?

I'm sorry but

LMAO



**pulls out a fresh tissue and dabs**

I'm baaaack

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

You missed me, eh. Come on, I know you did, don't be shy.

I have been on hiatus. That means I've been in a mental/physical/spiritual place that I didn't feel like blogging from. But the Spiritual news this week was too good to pass up (being the spiritual beastie that I be) - that Pope Bishop/King Brian I (he of the self-elevated titles and huge bonus) has just gained himself 700 virgins sons to kiss his ring and swear undying allegiance to Him. He's all upset because the backlash the media unleashed upon his Royal Bishopliness hasn't been very favourable to the Worldly One, which is hardly surprising when most of the thinking country isn't in a cult, nor are they dumb enough to see his "First Fruits as anything more than Spiritual Jam, or wet enough to think that any of this shit is normal.

Speaking of wet, that reminds me of a very old joke about two nuns sharing a bath and one says to the other "where's the soap" and the other one says "sure does". Think about it...

Michy, thanks for the shove to get my arse back here. We'll do physical health another night :0)

Wake up!

I'm back.

Now, if this comes with a dryer option, I want one ;-)

The Alternative Clothes Cleaner can also be used as a stylish and comfortable living room chair, making it a good-looking, multi-functional piece of furniture.

Snow business

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

H and her Youth Group went off to the snow at 4.30 this afternoon. Nearly five hours later they realised they were not where they were supposed to be. Someone forgot to tell the drivers that they were staying in Turangi and when H sent me a txt at 9.02, they were just leaving Taihape.

Taihape? WTF?

An hour+ further south than was desirable. In the dark; in the cold; without a clue.

Several txts back and forward discussing where they were and making sure they were indeed on Highway 1 and not National Park route and wanting to know "how long to Turangi", a Google search and a 2 phone calls later, they were confirmed to finally be heading in the right direction back up Highway 1. Last txt from H was "here nw nite love you".

A good lesson in planning a trip in daylight and pre-trip communication. Especially by the drivers. At least wasn't snowing on the Desert Rd - I'm sure she would have mentioned it.

As an aside, modern communication technologies do make some things so easy, eh. Here they are rocking on down the road at probably 80k in the dark on a strange road and the drivers don't even know where they are going and these upstanding Church Youth leaders are probably trusting God was taking care of them tonight when in reality it was Telecom, a satellite or 2 and Google courtesy of 50,000 years of Geekdom.

Geeks rock, eh.

PS - I'm back. ;0)

Where's the oinkment

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Missed me? I missed you :-)

I got sick - a flu thing. I couldn't talk, I couldn't swallow for days. I'd drag myself out of bed and pretend to take care of business then crash back into it wishing I could stay there. I had high fevers, MS spasticity for Africa and at times couldn't walk, stand or lie down from the pain. My legs gave up along with my voice and I got a wee bit stuck one morning when the kids were asleep and I couldn't "do" for myself and needed help but couldn't get anyone's attention.

It wasn't great so I am going to get a personal alarm that will wake the dead which probably means it will wake sleeping teenagers as well.

Old people, young people, everyone still wanted a piece of the sick, middle aged person's pie and the plate came up empty.

Highlight? The sexy doc at the after hours clinic where I ended up being taken when I couldn't cope and a chest infection was looming to go with the throat infection.

Two weeks down, my anti-b's have run out, my chest infection is almost gone and I can almost talk without straining a foofoo valve but dayam, it's been a rough few weeks. I've barely even walked outside, let alone achieved any gardening.


Other selected items of importance:

Wacko Jacko snuffed it and so did Farrah Fawcett. So did lots of other people around the world, but they weren't famous so I can't tell you who they were.

Thomas has an abscess on the side of his face by his whiskers but decided doctoring wasn't required. It's almost gone. He also decided that eating at only one residence wasn't enough so has been dining in style at the neighbours before coming home for dinner and bed with Ads. Except for one night when staying by their fire was preferable to cold tootsies in the frost.

Frosts have been extreme and a pain in the bum washing ice off the car in the mornings.

I finally bought a new oven, but I haven't had a chance to get a sparkie to come and install it yet.

Best of all, I finally got to see the new Star Trek movie and it was GOOD.

At least I didn't have swine flu - I have no idea where I would have stashed all that pork.

In his own words

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Adam came out of the kitchen tonight and said this;

"I hate cat food containers. No matter where you go in the room, the cats on them are looking at you".

I would have thought that was a good enough reason to get off his butt and put the shopping away, eh. He's right, though. I think it's a conspiracy...

4am wake up call

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

From this



to this



All I had to do was elbow him in the rib and he was all lovey dovey.

No wonder I can't get any sleep at night!

Pouring

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

It's a beautiful sunny day outside and I am sitting inside fixing the kids bloody computer. It fell over with a virus a month or so back, a nasty one and I just couldn't be bothered cleaning up the mess left behind when one of them visited something dodgy on the net and Avast let me down and didn't stop the infiltration of cyber-germ warfare. They have been forced to use the old, slooowww dual boot linux/XP box in the meantime and I finally got sick of the whining and started fixing it.

And fixing it.

And, well, you get the picture.

Their trouble free, goes and goes and goes old Compaq box just didn't want to go. I got the damn thing working fine except for a small problem of damaged components that wouldn't open ports to the outside world - ie no internet. It wouldn't let me repair them. Replacing them didn't work. I couldn't restore their disk image because Ghost couldn't read the hard disk.

It wouldn't even let me reinstall XP. Bastard thing.

So I took the hint that their main drive isn't a happy camper, stripped it back to the chassis and rearranged all their hardware, cleaned every nook and cranny of it, replaced all the proprietory Compaq screws that only a butter knife will undo with proper screws, replaced the CD writer with a DVD writer, put another spare hard drive in as a master drive and now, finally, it is installing XP like a good little computer on one partition of the drive.

Then all I have to do is move the data on partition #2 to another drive, format it, repartition the disk to be full size minus a small pagefile partition and reinstall all their multitude of games and apps and God knows what else.

A couple of days pissing about will have cured the whining, whilst the fighting over whose turn it is on the PC will crank up again.

A girl just can't win.

I think I'll go hide in my room and write a shopping list - it's time to replace my nearly 6 year old generic PC with a new, built by me jobbie and consign this one to being a movie and music network media server tucked away under my desk and thus free up a shit load of hard drive space on all the machines.

All I gotta do is figure out how to pay for the components... and not fuck it up during construction!

Plumb going dry

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

I haven't done anything at all interesting in the past week. The gas hot water tank shat itself and we had no hot water for over a week, so we all got to see the inside of a few of other people's bathrooms whilst begging ablution facilities from those who did have hot water. The best part of 2 grand later, our new hot water tank was fitted and all nice and hot (well, what's the point of cold, hmmm?) when the greater pressure of the new system blew the hot tap fitting apart in the top floor "kitchen". Then all the water had to be turned off and the mess mopped up.

Currently, that fitting is plugged off while we make a few modifications to the existing pipes and fit some new hardware up there, making it more practically usable in the long term. This means we finally have the freedom (yes that's what it feels like after so long) to stand nekkid in a hot shower and luxuriate in hot water for as long as one wants. I didn't realise how much I loved a nice hot shower until I couldn't have one on demand.

Tonight, I made a yummy chicken curry with poppadoms for dinner. Not a bit of it was left over and everyone cleaned their plates with gusto.

Two hours later, I was emptying my stomach regularly for an hour or so with much greater gusto when something in the dinner (I'm picking it's the poppadoms) disagreed with my cast iron constitution and finally sent me crawling into bed with a basin, moaning and groaning like the broken arsed sad thing I was at the time. Hours later, I don't feel sick any more but I feel damned delicate and in need of pampering and coffee. Seeing as how the kids had all gone to bed by the time I woke up, I've made my own coffee and gone without the personal pampering a good coffee-making child can give.

Oh, such a sad existence. I've gone right off poppadoms after only one taste. Thank the Goddess, Ads is on exam week so isn't off to school at sparrow's fart in the cold every day and I can have a few sleep ins. All this stress just knocks me flat.

Burning desire

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

The snails are at it again, bonking that is and Mrs S has laid a third lot of eggs. God help us.

The butternuts are about ripe; the gardens are almost weeded and pruned; the bath just needs some black polythene, rocks and water to transform into a pond and some fish to make it a fish pond. The gas hot water cylinder is on strike; the mongrel fucking neighbours on the next section over cut our macadamia tree off without asking everyone; there are few MS'y things I'm attempting to come to terms with and I'm not Happy.

I'm not any of the other six dwarves, either, but H could be when she slouches. We don't call her our Evil Little Circus Midget because she looks good in bright colours, you know - we call her that because she's Grumpy.

Being short was just a bonus.

Sticky

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

I'm going to be a Nana.

I don't quite know when because the mother-to-be hasn't told me and indeed, doesn't even know nor care herself and you know how there is never any definite date for these little occurrences because babies usually arrive when they are ready, but I have to say I'm not particularly surprised given the amount of time they have been spending joined at the proverbial pelvis.

Anyway, here is a pic



That's my babies, there in that pinky thing stuck on the glass. There is another one just like it stuck to the glass 8 inches away from that one and some time in the next 2-4 weeks they will hatch out, drop into the tank and either get gobbled up by the waiting guppies or start growing.

I'm not quite sure what I am going to do with tons of baby apple/mystery snails... and no, eating them is not an option.

Watch the S car go.

**pulls out a fresh tissue, wipes**

They have hardly stopped fucking, today. Or is that, they have hardly fucking stopped, today.

Either way, I'm think a short, but potentially sweet life could be had as a snail next time around. Beats the hell out of being a fat, desexed and pampered cat, which is what I was planning.

Just...

The only difference is the pampering, you realise, and I'll have to find a way to handle getting wet.

Getting screwed

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

I bought a couple of golden apple snails for the fish tank last weekend. I just wanted something a little more interesting than a guppy to look at, you know? But they are cool and sprint around the tank on their feet, doing all sorts of strange things. We've had the little brown snails in there for ages but they are really boring despite their prolific breeding.

I'd never really thought about sexy snails and what they do to get their funk on, but sort of thought baby golden snails would be nice. A bit of Googling suggested, not being hermaphrodites they needed a Mummy and a Daddy snail to perform snail intercourse to fertilise a bunch of eggs to be laid on the glass above the water line. I knew about the eggs - the Mystery snails used to leave them all over Mum's big tropical stock plant tanks back in my fish farm-teenagehood, dotting the concrete like crispy, pink berry fruits. But I was ignorant of their reproductive necessities.

Our snails have filled in every possible visual blank imaginable - Snail Sex 101



They fuck for over an hour a day. Every day.

Who would have thought snails had it so good, eh?

Cheesy

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

I haven't been feeling myself for a few weeks and spent a bit of time playing with Facebook applications instead of blogging boringly if methodically without motivation.

If you are already on Facebook, you will know about applications and if you aren't, you probably don't give a shit anyway, but these little gems are fun. Why, just this past week, they have managed to point out what sort of Dwarf I would have been -



Grumpy. Lack of excrement.



What sort of brain I have -



Fence-sitter.



How smart I am -



*cocks one eyebrow"


Where I should live -




I don't think so, Tim.


What book character I should have been (like wtf??)



um...


Then I found proof I was sane



*does a little dance*


and rounded it out with a really big woodpecker.




Because I could.

PS - Oh and my eyes are fine, just a little optic hypertension creeping in but I've buggered my shoulder replacing the chain that broke on the swing seat under me and Ads the other day.

It was very funny at the time :0)

Dork

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

I was sitting out in the Bahama Hut a few minutes ago thinking how pleasant it was out there at 11pm with the night sounds being blown around by the wind and the gentle cracking of the possum crashing around in the bamboo and I got to thinking, as you do, what the Hell is so fascinating about a clump of bamboo when it has no fruit on it? Why live in a barren waste just to trot across to the neighbours to nosh on their avocados? Why not live in the avocado tree at the neighbours? Cos, like, I was stuck in that bamboo for fully 5 minutes the other day and I can quite confidently say, I didn't see anything exciting about it at all.

Of course, this not seeing might be because my eyes are a bit naff, that ridge of high pressure invading my eyeballs that I was yapping about a few weeks back but it's more likely that the possum is just a dork...


Dork - slang for penis, amongst other things. Sometimes an affectionate nickname, sometimes spat out in frustration. But I bet this takes the cake for Dorkdom. It came to me in my mail (thanks, Shane) and just goes to show how big a dork someone can really be.

Dear Diary

Tomorrow I am going to see the eye specialist about the pressure in my eye balls that is much too high to be normal but has existed too long without making me go blind to be glaucoma.

It was noted in the eye man's report in 2001 when MS first came to live with me on a permanent basis.

I want my MRI, dammit.

:0(

Crochet, a dying craft?

**pulls out a fresh towel**

My Nana didn't knit or crochet, but if she had, I don't think they would have looked like these...



This is my, er, favourite. I think.



Certainly something a little different to give that beloved new grand child, eh.

PS - spot what's wrong with the co-joined teddies...

Lookalikes

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Our old girl had her birthday the other day - Nushie is 9, definitely a graceful old lady.



Looking at her, I got to thinking how right that old saying might be, the one so many people have trotted out and giggled at in the years we have been the owners of a mighty Shar Pei.

"Dogs look like their owners".

Oh I just laugh and laugh every time someone (usually the same friend) trots that one out but maybe they have seen a truth I missed until tonight - we do have some resemblances...

• She is short. So am I.
• She a natural brunette. So am I (underneath whatever dye I'm wearing, anyway).
• She is stiff and sore after lying or sitting down, so am I.
• She's as ugly as sin to those who value outward appearance over worth, and so am I.
• She is old and wrinkled, need of a face lift and mostly taken for granted. So am I.
• She is resigned to spending her days in useless sleepy boredom and so am I (almost).
• We both like riding in the car, we both have trouble getting to the loo in time, we both have a facial hair problem and we've both been spayed. 

• Best of all, we both get told to move our fat arse.

And what more could a fat, old bitch want on her birthday than scones, cake, pikelets with jam and 3 rides in the car.

Speaking of middle age, I thought sex in the Middle Ages was Nookie in the Norty Forties, but it looks like I was wrong...

Hot

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

This young lady, Adele has a wonderful bluesy, blowsy voice.



I love it.

I'm sorry to say I was not familiar with the song, even though it's been covered by more artists than you've had hot crumpet (well, than I have, anyway), nor did I realise it was a Dylan song and there are some excellent versions of it on YouTube, but I'm also sorry to say the worst version is definitely the one done by Bob. No-one can murder a terrific Dylan song like Bob.

*waits for Flattie to untangle his knackers and deliver a withering broadside*

I'm dead meat now, aren't I?

Thank God the car was repaired today; they can put my box on a trailer behind it and tow me up to the Crem. Speaking of boxes, I still haven't finished designing mine. I'm still leaning towards flaming currency, though. After all, everything in life is some form of currency, isn't it? God knows, we seem to never stop paying, one way or another...

Mongrel fucking cars

**pulls out a fresh kitchen towel roll**

I don't like my car. It failed a WOF this morning on front brake pads, not unexpected cos it's been a bit spongy and soft for a wee while and I'm a hard braker lol. I didn't mention the rough CV joints on accelerated turning, and neither did the WOF guy so maybe they aren't bad, just annoying, but tonight the transmission shat itself. By that, I mean it stopped moving and started grinding when I was backing up at the vege shop. It didn't want to go forwards, either. Going via reverse to get to park was interesting - the grinding got louder. Starting in Park was fine, until one exited via Reverse and then everything ground and it still went nowhere. It even grinds in Neutral.

Now it's parked up at the vege shop locked in their yard, me and the dog walked home (not far but too far for me *sigh*) and I'm kicking myself that I remembered to lock the bitch up. Maybe tomorrow I could be claiming the insurance money cos some shits burnt it out, being parked in the dark, isolated area it is. My insurance still covers me for $2500 agreed value, it won't be worth the cost of a new tranny, the car's only worth $800 on a good day.

Up side?

I could have been in the 5 o'clock rush, or way over the other side of the Bridge, or somewhere on the open road - Open Road might not have been pretty.... Instead I was 300 metres from home and a 1km tow to my mechanic.

It did it BEFORE I spent $150 on it on Friday to get the new brake pads fitted.

I have the Corolla to use as necessary, but being a manual my legs aren't too good for too long.

I have so far managed to withstand the impulse to drive the Corolla down there and unlock it.

It just caps off a really, really crappy week.

Determined

**rummages for a new box**

I wonder sometimes, as a somewhat uncommitted believer in pre-birth spiritual self-determination, whether some of those self-help, spiritual awareness books might just be pulling the wool. Just a tad.

I think of it like this...

All these books leading us to Spiritual Awareness (a bargain at only $44.99 or two for $90) speak of healing the mind and soul, using the power of positive thinking to bring to us that which we would most like to have (Love, money, fame etc), paying it forward when giving back to the One, the Universe in return for the bounty It provides.

All good stuff, yes?

But, like, what if we really did choose this existence to further our spiritual learning as we reap/sow Karma with gay abandon and encounter endless unhealed pain and sickness, unanswered wants and needs, warts and all? Giving up would be the smart thing to do, yes? Cos we already chose it so we can't change it when we don't like it.

Then either we are some seriously fucked up bunnies, or I want some of the drugs those enlightened authors are on, and Mick Jagger, too. He reckoned that you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need.

Right.

Maybe it's all in the drugs I am on...

Of course, if you want to delve into the whole "One" issue, you could always read 'One' by Richard Bach. He had the best drugs of all.

Oh God yes.

Wild, baby

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

When I was younger, one of my most favourite books was Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.



Now, it's a movie.



If only we could all be like Max and come home to a hot supper and a world all set to rights. Wouldn't that be cool

UPDATE: hehe look, some poor sad arsed cunt had to go an nobble the pic of the book. FFS I've just given it a bloody plug, must suck to be them lol

Update the Update 24/4: And now they've gone and put it back again *snort*

Yes, well, um

**hides the tissues**



and shopping bags for men...

Sometimes even I am rendered speechless... but this sort of made up for it

Well, well, well

**pulls back the cobwebs**

What can I say? The days are inching past with no letup nor pause and neither do the MS bits. The hands are still numb, the will is still there but the legs are still weak, the days are still too long and the nights are endless yet still I accomplish little of note.

It's sort of like being in prison, I suspect, but without the under floor heating.

These guys are in prison



and check out the chick lol

I haven't mowed the lawn lately or gardened barely at all in weeks, the last lot of the summer veg is sitting in the fridge for the second night waiting to be cooked and I need more MS-sized nana naps.

Well, a girl has to power down occasionally if she's going to keep looking her best. Eh.

Notes to self

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Occasionally, despite randomly chronicling my MSy shit in the blog, there are things I put in to do with my current state that I should be writing down for me, for future reference. Like a diary of my condition, cos I forget things and then go blank at the Doc's when he says "So how long has THIS been going on?" sort of thing.

So, I found a crude little text box generator to add a speshul Dear Diary box so I can keep track of where I'm at, where I've been and, more importantly, where I'm going and it's randomly coming to a text box near you.

If I remember.

It seems kind of fitting to introduce it on April Fools Day even if, every day, it's me that plays is the Fool :0)

Dear Diary

It's April 1st.
This is the new Dear Diary box. Get used to seeing it pop up occasionally. It will be filled to overflowing with Notes to Self.

Enjoy!

OK, that will do for now, you can go.

Dearly departed

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

My mother apparently told my father, when they got married, that he had better be resigned to only having daughters, coming as he was from a family of predominately girls. Second in a family of 7, he was the only surviving boy, his brother having died in infancy. Just him and Grandad with all dem wimminfolks.

And while Grandad might have produced a son as well as a daughter from his second marriage, by the time we were both born only having two daughters wasn't really unexpected.

I couldn't say that I knew he had a favourite sister, as I think they are all equally special to him for their own unique talents and personalities. I think their growing up spanning the Depression probably helped make the bonds that continue to tie the generations together across the families that make up The Family.

One of his sisters, Louise, had a fine talent for the spoken and written word. Throughout her life, she was surrounded by people of words - writers, singers, public figures, civil servants and the diplomatic community. As a young woman and the wife of a foreign diplomat, she lived in countries around the world and became a single mother to three young girls when her husband passed away. Later, once more as a wife, with History in her veins, she traveled to collate data on our Family Tree that produced several fantastic books.

As a mother, she buried one of the young women she'd raised and watched the other two spread their wings and take off to explore the world. She saw one become a mother in her turn.

Wife, mother, daughter, sister, grandmother, cousin and much respected and admired aunt; all these roles she fulfilled and fulfilled them admirably. Today, cancer took her from us.

Louise
31 of August, 1937 - 31st of March 2009.

What a dash, Louise.

Shout it out

**pulls out a fresh tissue and flaps it**

A big shout out, folks to the person from Melbourne, Australia who came to visit here today via this link.

They even make the same typos I do.

baaaaahaaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaa

Help

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

I grew veges this year, started recycling and composting household scraps.

I thought that was a decent enough sop to the Greenies and self-sufficients but no, now I gotta go and MAKE stuff with the veges. In the kitchen and I don't DO kitchens and cooking stuff - that's Ads role.

So I made Pickle - recipe courtesy of Mrs Flattie.



God help me - it looks right, smells right and tastes pretty damned good. Don't tell Her Ladyship, she'll never let me live it down that she contributed to me spending time creating this stuff in the kitchen.

PS - I don't have to stomp my own grapes to make my own vinegar for making my own home-grown vege pickle as well, do I? Cos, like, that really ain't gonna happen. Uh huh.

PPS - I wonder what I can make with butternut...

Out of my tree again

**pulls out a box of fresh tissues**

We used to have a loquat tree. Mum planted it there, on the North boundary 20 odd years ago.

Now, we don't.



It had fire blight and a split creeping right down the very centre of the trunk from its mushy, bug infested crotch. Now we don't because Flattie very kindly chopped it down for me last weekend, leaving the trunk still intact. That way, it can live on as a garden sculpture, hosting a climber of some sort while protecting the baby Maple I planted beside its roots the same day.

Kill one, plant one - but make sure it's one that won't need bloody spraying every three weeks when it invades everything.

I had a wee meltdown last night, been coming on for a wee while and I've been sinking for days and then snap! the body said "no more and down you go for a sleep and some rest". So I did.

After I cooked everyone dinner.

I had a whole bunch of shit I was going to ladle out for you tonight and now I've forgotten it all.

I do some of my best better thinking in those quiet, inner resting times when I'm physically/mentally/emotionally putting my ducks in a line and preparing for the next onslaught by that tricky wee MonSter.

Keep your eyes open for a new feature coming to the blog soon. It'll just rivet ya.

With real rivets.

You know how it goes

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Some weeks, Life just sort of takes over. Like last Saturday Ads got his bi-plane ride and by Sunday he had a bad cold that became a full blown head or sinus or something infection that eventually needed the vet doctor when he started blowing handsful of green and yellow snot every time he blew his nose (50 times a day) and kept him off school all week. And then on Tuesday when it rained torrential rain for 8 hours and, after I'd knocked my legs out walking around the supermarket, came home to find water coming into the front foyer from the overflowing storm-water drain that couldn't cope with our water and the added deluge from the neighbours whose tree has lifted the driveway and changed the natural water path, necessitating an hour out in the rain digging hurried trenches to try to get it moving away from the area. Wednesday was pretty quiet and laid back - not being very mobile sort of brings that on - until late evening when H and Woowis went out to dinner and a movie and neglected to tell me what time they would be wanting their ride home from town and both neglected to charge their cell phones meaning I didn't end my driving duties until 11pm, several hours after the pills and bed would have been appropriate and just before finding out my TV set in my room and done its chips and I had no company at night any more. Thursday was spent mostly asleep, getting over the rest of the week (and hoisting the Old Man's spare 14inch TV out of his garage) with a quick trip to Te Puke to pick up my latest Trade Me bargain which I loved at first sight too much not to bid $2 on, and Friday, well as usual today I did far too much and hurt myself.

This is my purchase - you can see why I couldn't resist, eh



Tomorrow's highlights include a visit from our much adored Very Special People from Thames for lunch, the application of Flattie's chainsaw to chop the top off my poor, beleaguered Loquat tree before it splits in half to the base and swapping the upstairs couch for the downstairs one (and vice versa) because I waited 20 years to be able to buy the suite I loved and decided someone else should NOT have the benefit of it when I could be sitting on it instead.

Next week is gathering together sand and cement and getting the concrete mixer running - it's judderbar across the driveway building time. I'm too old and sick to dig fucking trenches in the torrential rain to divert water that shouldn't even be cascading across my property in the first place. After 10 years flooding my house, the suffering will come to an end.

I might even spray paint it shocking pink - my very own statement of displeasure that even the neighbours can't miss, but only on the outside face cos, like, I don't want to be looking at a shocking pink judderbar now, do I? After that, I'll gradually fill the space between our fence and theirs with soil 18 inches deep and stop the rest of their bloody water coming in along the side boundary and the next time they want to whinge that my trees block their sun in the afternoons in winter time, I have three little words for them.

Amen isn't one of them, but suck it down will be in there somewhere.

PS Sorry Michy, I haven't had a chance to reply to your email, but I will, I promise.

High flyer

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

After a couple of rides in the Yak, today Ads got a seat in something a little slower, chillier, less sophisticated but ultimately just as satisfying - the AgCat, a bi-plane.



It's like wind-in-the-hair motoring, but faster and at higher altitude.

Not a bad payment for a few hours washing down planes, including one of "his" beloved Harvards.

He also had a hand in the Catalina Restoration, which was finally raised last weekend. Very satisfying for the team.

I spent most of last week in bed, made up for it by doing far too much over the last couple of days and have a bit of burning, wriggling and writhing going on tonight. While sleep might be out of the question, blogging isn't.

Being in bed during the day gave me an opportunity to watch a bit of TV, specifically an item on Discovery Channel, Superweapons of the Ancient World about the Claw of Archimedes, in which they built a replica of it and a Roman war galley, thus proving that it could indeed have done as legend suggested.

Clever fuckers, those ancient Greeks.

Hiatus

**pulls out another pillow**

Sleepy. Zombied on pills. Numb hands, arms and feet. Alone. Clumsy. Fed up. Misunderstood. Can't cope.

When will this nightmare end?

Big is good

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

I started putting the "cladding" around my summer house today. It's now been christened "the Cabana, like something from an exclusive Caribbean holiday destination. Only, it didn't blow away in the winds we so recently endured like it might have there. And there is currently a lake at the bottom of the hill from thr torrectial rain we've just had, not a lagoon. It's a bit of a big job but I cut it down to size by using big bamboo, and big bamboo that had died and dried in the clump and lifts out. This does, of course, make things so much easier as the cutting thus involved only requires a sharp saw, a steady hand and to be seated at the picnic table previously marked out in measured lengths as a cutting guide.

Dead fucking easy, so easy that I only incurred one new wound from the pruning saw this time and my legs almost made it to the end of the day, going on strike around dinnertime tonight. Ads rolled his eyes at my cut thumb when I wrapped some surgical tape around it and just kept going. I told him to harden up, no job gets done sitting around in the house bemoaning a wee cut (or three). Not until one runs out of surgical tape, anyway - Note to self: buy more tape on shopping day.

I wonder how a cabana would look with a deck?

On the subject of decks, have a giggle at this. It's my favourite comedy guys in action.



When you finish giggling at the double entendres in there, catch a little more...



I could watch these guys all night, if I didn't have more sleep awaiting and an alarm to catch at 7am!

Cloth eyes

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Some days are really, really good.
Some days are OK.
Some days are mediocre.
Some days are a bit rugged.
Some days are vacuum days and they just suck.

Today was a vacuum day, which followed a vacuum night - the worst I've had in a while. So it's not really a surprise that the excessive pressure I have in my eyes which my optometrist has been monitoring for a while (and quite intensively for the past few days), is the worst he has seen in my visits to his clinic. So bad that, if it's still this excessive tomorrow morning, he is going to refer me to an eye specialist for further investigation. Currently being in a very messy MSy phase sort of makes me think that it has always been MS related right from the first bout of optic neuritis at onset back in October 2001 when the pressure was already abnormally high in my right eye. Besides, he says that if it had been glaucoma, I'd already be blind.

OK, different kind of blind. At least both are playing up now so I can't be one-eyed.

I heard that, I'm not bloody deaf, you know.

Blind Pew said it best...



I should get my virgin lobes pierced one day. I'm sure it would help. It appears to have helped Pew :0)


In my mail today...



Bingo.

Therapy

**pulls out a fresh towel**

I've been very slack again, haven't I!

I've been taking those bloody Pams in doubles every night and they just fuck me up to the point I can't string together a coherent sentence after 11pm. Running the cable into my room to watch Sky in the wee smas in an attempt to keep me in bed when I'm awake instead of staggering around the house annoying the dog with my blunderings has worked. Seeing as how I don't have a laptop, I don't post at 3 in the morning the same. It's sort of a win/lose situation really.

My hands are manky and my brain isn't too flash, so I've been practicing my own occupational therapy (it occupies me, right?) and been making stuff in the garden, stuff that I can sit down to do, seeing as how my legs are feeling a little weak and wobbly.

This is what I've been making - the aforementioned bamboo screens:

First I started with a shaggy bamboo hood over the swing seat, just to get a feel for the fabric of it all *snort*



It's ok. Needs work.

Then I made a vertical one where some blue (yuk, yes blue) shade cloth was



That was better. I really like it.

So then, I started on the sides of the summerhouse, the next stage of which was long overdue




These I like, to the point they have encouraged me to continue on 3 sides, purchase at an extremely cheap price a couple more Yucca of good size to enhance the area and also a large green plastic table that can live at Ian's until I decide I need it here in the summerhouse. I also acquired an old bath from Rae, not sure where that is going yet but the idea of a second Lotus pool appeals, especially with a yellow Lotus in it. And some more fish.

Speaking of fish, we have 14 goldfish now, spread between the two troughs and the guppies are breeding like mad. At least something is getting sex around here.

I also added to the berry garden by buying a rather large boysenberry plant for $8.40 at the Red Shed in their clearance area.

So many pots on the go, so little stove space. And I need more fingers for all the pies I have to shove them in.

**sigh**

Being physically limited pisses me right off but the more I can get done before I ask for the chemo, the better I will feel about doing nothing but throw up, lie down and cry when/if the time comes.

Oh, and I took myself off to the eye man for a check and a chat about this problem I'm having that, specs on or off, I can never seem to focus on whatever it is I'm looking at up close. It's confirmed - I officially have old person eyes and have just ordered my first pair of progressive spectacles from the US. Then all I have to do is get used to the bloody things, but I refused bi-focals. Just because I have old eyes doesn't mean they have to look like it, eh? To compensate for the emotional damage being pronounced aging did, I dyed my hair purple again last night.

It helps.

I will strive to be more regular - blog-wise, that is.

ciao4now

Slacker

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

I've been slack, haven't I, and neglected you all horribly. I have no excuse except I've been zombied out on double clonazepam every day, I did a bit of gardening and spraying (as usual), made a couple of rather nice small bamboo screens and fucked my neck up, harvested shitloads of tomatoes and gave most of them away (as usual), played good mummy/taxi service (as usual), mowed the lawn and knocked my legs out (as usual), ran the new TV cable through to my room so I can watch Sky in bed and finished cleaning out the garden shed for the pigeons which we let out on Sunday and which promptly made a speedy beeline for home, not to be seen again.

I think tomorrow, for a change, I might go down to Mark's and find them so I can kick them in their fat pigeon arses and feel so much better about their ungrateful defection. Oh, and they can bloody well stay there - I'm going to focus on the chook run - the chooks won't be flying anywhere.

In the meantime, I've tied a knot in the end of my rope and I'm hanging on... just. My hands aren't working very well, either. Sometimes letting go has an attraction all of its own that's hard to ignore - no safety net required.

Murphy strikes again

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

We brought those pigeons home at the weekend for one purpose - to coax in the loose and lonely one flying around the area. Now that the 3 Stooges are in the back yard, the loose one has vanished again.

Bloody typical.

I spent a bit of time this morning, before it got hot, out in the back yard sorting out one of the last 2 'wilderness' areas on the section. Specifically the area around the little green shed that will soon house said pigeons. It's currently full of bits of junk (which was spilling out all over the ground before I got started) like old car trim, wiper arms and hoses, more hoses, wiring looms, more wiring looms, headlights and hubcaps, brake units and tin cans, plumbing stuff and rusted car jacks. You get the picture, eh.

Crap, in other words.

Lots of it has been retired to the 'going in the next skip' pile and the good/usable bits will go back under the shelves and get covered up for another 20 years. Just in case. Then the birds can have the rest of the shed as a roast roost near the chook run (when I build it). That will keep all the feathered things in one area. Once the shed is cleared out I can move on to my next project - making bamboo panels to go around the bottom half of the summer house I built on the lawn last spring. I figure that it's way cheaper than trellis and I'm not exactly short of raw materials. If it works the way I plan, I might make some of the chook run using the same idea.

Or I might just go to bed for 3 months. I'm not feeling so great lately and I'm having a bit of difficulty feeling enthusiasm to do much of anything at all, even though I kid myself (and everyone else) that I am. This putting one foot in front of the other stuff is getting a bit tiresome; it might be easier if the legs my feet are attached to weren't so annoyingly stiff, weak and sore most of the time and the same with the rest of me. It would be nice if Life didn't seem so endlessly and disappointingly pointless at the moment.

I don't want much, do I?

I'd love to know what I did in some previous life to have earnt it all - I hope it was a real fucking doozy.

Babies

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

There is one thing babies do better than pee, poop and spew and that's cry. They cry at home; they cry in the car; the cry at the doctors and they cry at the supermarket.

I went to the supermarket today (as ya do) and there were a few crying babies out and about shopping with their mums. One mum had a toddler and a baby on board and was struggling a bit to cope with it - her comment to her toddler when I passed her was "Mummy is having trouble concentrating"

I'm not surprised - a relatively new bubby and a toddler in a busy supermarket would be enough to fry the brain of the most capable woman, but the comments of two women (of my own vintage) in front of me at the checkout really put my back up.

Woman #1 "Listen to that baby, it sounds hungry. Why bring a hungry baby to a supermarket."
Woman #2 "Oh it sounds tired to me, it should be home in bed".
Woman #1 "What a noise it's making."
Woman #2 "You really have to wonder."

By now, I was getting a wee bit pissy, but I managed to be almost pleasant when I leaned forward and said "Even though my 'baby' is 15, I still remember the feeling of dread at the sound of them starting off when I was half way through shopping".

Woman #2 said "Mine never did that".
I said "well weren't you fortunate, it's not like you can pack up and go home when bubby starts crying, but you can choose not to shop at the time of day when mums are out with their babies buying food".

I wanted to smack the sanctimonious bitches right in the kisser, I did. I consoled myself wqith muttering "stupid cows" instead.

Such restraint *sigh*

One or the birds

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

For months we have had a pigeon in the vicinity. I've heard it heaps but haven't been able to spot it and I've been worrying about its welfare in the cold months coming. I figured that if I could coax it closer, we could feed it and get it used to us and hit on an idea how to accomplish that - borrow a pigeon from Mark for a few weeks. So I rang him...

I said "Can I borrow a pigeon for a bit?"
He said "Sure".
I said "We have a loose pigeon flying around the trees, I want to coax it closer so we can feed it through the winter".
He said "Have a couple. In fact, you really need at least 7 or 8".
I said "Like Hell I do".

Cheeky bastard, just cos he's overflowing with pigeons...

Now we have 3 pigeons in the back yard, in the old rabbit cage, staring at the old shed that is going to be their house in a week or two when I let them out. Their names are Harvard, Inky and Sally. I don't even know if Sally is a girl, the naming was kind of random and all but the cats have been to visit and come away with visions of a hunting prowess I don't think any of them can live up to and Nushie has 3 new friends - she keeps going out behind the fence to look at them and begging us to go with her. It's really pathetic.

I don't know whether she knows what they are or just thinks they are small chooks, but if pigeons make her this happy then the chooks, when we get some, are going to make her bloody ecstatic. She's such a silly old bitch at times.

I suppose it beats getting her a kitten to mother, like we did in the past. At least these won't be under foot; they'll be shitting on the roof instead.

Oh dear...

On the button

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

After a summer of being taxi to the big kids and because she starts her full time Polytech course on Monday, H shouted me to the movies. I haven't been inside a movie theatre in years. And then we went shopping together. It's nice to be invited out by one's 18 year old daughter so that we can have some one-on-one time :-)

Anyway, we went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, based on a short story of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It's about a baby who is born in an old man's body and grows younger each passing year, until he is an old man with total dementia in a baby's body at the end of the movie. The make-up was very convincing.

Coming on top of the Mr Y Mindfuck, I found it very good. The fact that Brad Pitt flexed his bare chest on multiple occasions has nothing to do with it!

If you are into a calm, meandering movie set in New Orleans with a wide range of characters (The Hallelujah Healer was a hoot! not to mention the man who was struck by lightning 7 times. We found ourselves watching out for each one to be revealed.) with a tearjerker beginning and a satisfying ending, this is a good one to catch.

I found the major drawback to be Cate Blanchett in the female lead role. I just can't get to like her as an actress.

Suckers

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Grocery shopping sucks. Funerals suck. Double Clonazepam with a codeine chaser sucks and so does the 17 hours it takes to stop being a zombie afterwards. Irresponsible kids suck and also sleeping well. Maybe the Earth sucks, too, and gravity really is just a myth. Even baby guppies suck, but that's because their little mouths are built to suck little bits of food in so they are excused. It does mean that the guppy tank sucks because we have another batch of babies and a 3 more mummies in the net waiting to give birth to their own wee suckers but there are lots of awaited blondes in this bunch which certainly doesn't suck.

With all this sucking going on, you'd think living would be cleaner, eh. But it's not and I'm going to start writing stuff down that bothers me, yet would likely bother the pants off you or is a bit too deep to post on here. Of course, I'll forget where I hid the book and that will really suck, too. But only having one hour left before the alarm clock goes off probably sucks most of all. I'm a sucker for punishment.

Fuck I'm glad I'm not a vacuum cleaner; that job has to really suck, eh!


Gonna head back to bed and ponder that one...

Kids, don't try this at home

**pulls out a mop**

Apparently it was something like 30 degrees here today. This might explain why it felt so hot. I watered the garden and scrubbed the picnic table this morning; that was very exciting. Late afternoon, as it was cooling down a bit, I went out and washed the car and then it felt so hot again that I turned the hose on myself despite the fact that I don't like getting wet. Then I took a cold shower to really cool me off.

Aiming the hose right up one's nostrils is not as nearly as amusing as it sounds.

This place looks like someone forgot to water the garden.

Kolmanskop, a ghost town buried in the sand.



And, because I haven't overtly offended you for a while, a little fav family ditty

I know a nigga named Tim
I like to throw tomatoes at him
Tomatoes are soft and don't hurt the skin
But these fuckers do cos they're still in the tin.

Jeez my kids are evil.

Passing through

**empties a box of tissues**

Years ago, when I was studying and working at Polytech, I met a lady named Sue.

Sue was funny; she was honest; she was friendly and helpful and a lot of fun to be around. She was a single mum with a couple of (then) teenage boys who sometimes battled huge odds - financially, family and health-wise to be able to continue her studies and sometimes when I was on evening shift, we would get together for a coffee and a yak in the quad. We shared the things that made us happy and the things that didn't; ideas and jokes and our little triumphs and sometimes our big trials. Over the years, we would run into each other on the street, or in the supermarket and we would have a hug and a chat, sometimes for ages if we had time. It was always a breath of fresh air to see her.

At 4.40pm today, Sue lost her final battle with breast cancer.

She touched many, was loved by many and will be hugely missed by many. I was blessed to have known her.

Light a candle
Pray for me
To whoever is your Deity
Who blows the wind
And stirs the sea
And holds us in His hand.

Thank you Sue, for being you.

Got

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Got some yummy corn and butternut out of the garden, which we had for dinner tonight.

Got some breathing space this week - the lawn hasn't grown much.

Got very few plums left at the top of the tree and got loads of windfalls into the compost bin.

Got rid of the last of the green cabbage out of the garden, so now I can plant other stuff.

Got H soaked with the hose when both kids came out to play while I was watering the garden.

I don't really got my legs back, though. Bugger.

Mousey

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Here we are at the end of the school holidays. Tomorrow morning, Mr Bright Eyed and Bushy-Tailed will arise, shower, eat brekky and trot happily off to school. Here in our house, I'll have to threaten Mr Grumpy Bastard with a cup of cold water to make him crawl out of bed and into the shower, force him to eat some food and take his tablet, nag him to get dressed and pack his bag and kick his arse into the car so that I can break records getting through the morning rush hour traffic to be at school on time.

Same shit, different year *sigh*

As the summer holidays have wound down, so has my ability to cope. I'm tired, strung out, endlessly hurting in too many places, fed up, worried, over-burdened with Life and just want to be left alone; today, just for a change, I lost my legs as well. They aren't working so great, weak and wobbly bits alternating with spasticity and very sore. I'm a little bit pissed off about it because if it keeps up I might have to tap the doc for the chemo tablets touted by the neuro as being a logical follow up to the Solumedrol - and I hate the chemo, even if it's what got me walking again last time dem legs went out to lunch without me and didn't come back afterwards.

Thank God one doesn't need functioning legs to lie down and sleep because that's what I did for most of today. That weekly supermarket marathon just fucks me over, sometimes.

I started a new book last night, read 50 odd pages of it and ditched it as crap - Life is too short to persevere with rubbish books although, I will grant you, The End of My Y is a damned hard act to follow, it was so good. Apollo Smintheus was cool. I'd be more tempted to look for more of Scarlett Thomas' books if the connection to our Tauranga City Library web site wasn't as useless as the morons they hire to work in their rates department.

All brickbats aside, she just might be worthy of a place on my mental collections list - the authors whose books become permanent features in my ever increasing library. Maybe I should just go and peruse my shelves for a good read, seeing as the library shelves are void. I'm sure something will jump out and speak to me, and if not, I can always read my cards instead :0)

PS - Historically speaking, Apollo Smintheus was a busy dude, back in the day. And a Big Noter with temples of rock.

Watching you watching me

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

I moved some of my bedroom furniture yesterday, put my bed back under the window to make it easier to use both sides of the bed and made room for the old oak washstand with the marble slab to come and live in my room and put a TV on it. This has surprised me somewhat; I don't even like TV but I figured if I move the TV aerial splitter box to inside the Sky decoder loop and run a cable into my room, I can enjoy whatever channel is currently running on Sky at the time and if I change Sky to Channel 63 before I go to bed, I can have something for company instead of mooching around the house at 4am and being ignored by all the sleeping pets. Like I was an hour and a half ago; and now at 5.30am; and most times in between.

Two days until school starts and I haven't had a break, yet. So much for holidays and a chance to recoup, I should have known the camel carries the holidaymakers.

This wakeful time gives me a chance to comb the stats, though and they are somewhat interesting: someone has been combing my blogs for days, someone on satellite with plenty of time on their hands. I hope for their sake they aren't on a piddly low usage plan; their bill is gonna look pretty damn shitty after spending hours scouring my low-usage-cap-unfriendly blog.



I wonder if they'll be back again today? Oooh. it is exciting, isn't it!

**hums** "I was looking back to see if you were looking back to see if you were looking back to see if you were looking back at me..."

What's more, I know who they are...



**waves**

Yaktion

**pulls out a fresh tissue and blows**



That's my baby up there in the rear seat of the Yak yesterday during a quick flyover, the lucky little bastard. What a fab day it was for a bit of rocking and rolling out over the ocean and he didn't even notice he didn't have a sick bag :-)

Cross

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Did you hear about the new dog cross-breeds?

They crossed a Collie and a Lhasa Apso.
The new breed is a Collapso, a dog that folds up for easy transport.

They crossed a Spitz and a Chow-Chow.
The new breed is a Spitz-Chow, a dog that throws up a lot.

They crossed a Pointer and a Setter.
The new breed is a Poinsetter, a traditional Christmas pet.

They crossed a Great Pyrenees and a Dachshund.
The new breed is a Pyradachs, a puzzling breed.

They crossed a Pekingese and a Lhasa Apso.
The new breed is Peekasso, an abstract dog.

They crossed a Irish Water Spaniel and a English Springer Spaniel.
The new breed is a Irish Springer, a dog fresh and clean.

They crossed a Labrador Retriever and a Curly Coated Retriever.
The new breed is a Lab Coat Retriever, the choice of laboratory researchers.

They crossed a Newfoundland and a Basset Hound.
The new breed is a Newfound Asset Hound, a dog for financial advisors.

They crossed a Bloodhound and a Labrador.
The new breed is a Blabador, a dog that barks incessantly.

They crossed a Malamute and a Pointer.
The new breed is a Moot Point, owned by....oh, well, it doesn't really matter.

They crossed a Collie and a Malamute.
The new breed is a Commute, a dog that travels to work.

They crossed a Deerhound and a Terrier.
The new breed is a Derriere, a dog that's true to the end.

They crossed a Bull Terrier and a ShihTzu.
The new breed is a uhh, I'll get back to you on that...

And then there is this, which is just fucking wrong. Seriously. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Aye, robots

**pulls out a can of machine oil**


Main Entry: ro·bot
Pronunciation: \ˈrō-ˌbät, -bət\
Function: noun
Etymology: Czech, from robota compulsory labor; akin to Old High German arabeit trouble, Latin orbus orphaned — more at orphan
Date: 1923

1 a: a machine that looks like a human being and performs various complex acts (as walking or talking) of a human being ; also : a similar but fictional machine whose lack of capacity for human emotions is often emphasized b: an efficient insensitive person who functions automatically.

2: a device that automatically performs complicated often repetitive tasks.

3: a mechanism guided by automatic controls.


When I was young, we had Alan Parsons and I Robot. Then it got a bit evil


(Austin Powers)

followed shortly after by


(Will Smith)

oops, wrong one


(iRobot)

Other movies and TV shows gave us robots as tools and companions and to sci-fi writers, they were basics. Everyone knows about ultra-manufacturing using robotic assembly plants and most have seen those little robot vacuum cleaners that scuttle around like a rat on heat but I hadn't thought of the scope of their use,


(dinosaurs)

nor the abilities they now have and the resource efficiency they could bring. And think of the the fun they could be despite the jobs they could/will cost the ordinary people.





and they can even dance... cute, eh!



Not so cute is their potential use in warfare (imagine a saw or automatic weapon strapped to the snout of this)


(Boston Dynamics Big Dog)

but my favourite one would have to be


(Marvin)

"The first ten million years were the worst, and the second ten million they were the worst too... the third ten million, I didn't enjoy at all."

What brought all this on? I stumbled on something and the rest was automatic.

:0)

Bounty

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Ads and I had plums and spring onions from the garden. Leafy had free range eggs. We each converged today, North and South, on Thames where the Flatcats had jars of pickle (and H, at the end of her holiday) and we played swapsies. We came home with eggs and pickle; Leafy went home with plums, spring onions and pickle. I love to barter.

And then there was the divine meal we all shared before hitting the road in our respective directions. Sometimes the simplest days are just the best.

Oh and we got H back, too. The kids haven't even had a fight... yet...

:0)

Round up

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Yesterday I made the most of the dry and almost zephyr-less morning to kill a few weeds. I filled up my 4 litre sprayer with my Round Up glyphosate clone (4 times) and set off to battle the creeping dock and convolvulus once more competing for World Domination on my northern boundary. To the East is the honeysuckle, kiwifruit and privet attempting (and failing) to get a toehold to regenerate into bloody great trees again. The South has creeping dock, grass and red hot pokers (I'm not allowed to spray the pokers, the Old Man would get pissy) and the west has wandering jew and baby flowering cherry trees sprouting up all over anything that doesn't move.

To the north east and south west come a different and specific kind - people. Apparently, I'm not allowed to spray them, either.

So, by the time I had lugged the sprayer around the whole boundary, applying it with gay abandon everywhere I went and did the same all over the old man's driveway and fence line in the sun, with my big hat on and shortly thereafter came to the conclusion that menopausal women with MS should not wear a fucking hat in the sun - talk about dripping with sweat.

By bed time it was obvious I'd overdone it, if the pain in my left hip is anything to go by. Oh and my right leg isn't working very well. Walking is a bit of a gamble. A girl could be forgiven for feeling old but I'm too busy being decrepit to get around to it. I can't take Pams tonight - I have to drive to Thames tomorrow and the two are mutually exclusive.

Next week it's Tordon Time. Then Woody Weedkiller a month after that. Then finish up with glyphosate again so when winter hits they are already screwed. I do wish the Council would send their crew around a bit more often, though; spraying their weeds tends to take its toll but I can't let it go back to what it was.

I'd never find the plums in the long grass...

Everything is such a battle sometimes. I guess that's what challenges are made of :0)

While on the subject of spoons

We are going to have a short break for refreshments and I'm going to digress a little (how unusual) and rehash the Spoon Story.

Normal service will resume shortly.

The Spoon Story (Not Mine)

My best friend and I were in the diner, talking. As usual, it was very late and we were eating French fries with gravy. Like normal girls our age, we spent a lot of time in the diner while in college, and most of the time we spent talking about boys, music or trivial things, that seemed very important at the time. We never got serious about anything in particular and spent most of our time laughing.

As I went to take some of my medicine with a snack as I usually did, she watched me with an awkward kind of stare, instead of continuing the conversation. She then asked me out of the blue what it felt like to have MS and be sick. I was shocked not only because she asked the random question, but also because I assumed she knew all there was to know about MS. She came to doctors with me and she saw me walk with a cane. She had seen me cry in pain, what else was there to know? I started to ramble on about pills, and aches and pains, but she kept pursuing, and didn't seem satisfied with my answers. I was a little surprised as being my roommate in college and friend for years; I thought she already knew the medical definition of MS. Then she looked at me with a face every sick person knows well, the face of pure curiosity about something no one healthy can truly understand. She asked what it felt like, not physically, but what it felt like to be me, to be sick.

As I tried to gain my composure, I glanced around the table for help or guidance, or at least stall for time to think. I was trying to find the right words. How do I answer a question I never was able to answer for myself? How do I explain every detail of every day being effected, and give the emotions a sick person goes through with clarity.

I could have given up, cracked a joke like I usually do, and changed the subject, but I remember thinking if I don’t try to explain this, how could I ever expect her to understand. If I can’t explain this to my best friend, how could I explain my world to anyone else? I had to at least try.

At that moment, the spoon theory was born. I quickly grabbed every spoon on the table; hell I grabbed spoons off of the other tables. I looked at her in the eyes and said “Here you go, you have MS”. She looked at me slightly confused, as anyone would when they are being handed a bouquet of spoons. The cold metal spoons clanked in my hands, as I grouped them together and shoved them into her hands. I explained that the difference in being sick and being healthy is having to make choices or to consciously think about things when the rest of the world doesn’t have to. The healthy have the luxury of a life without choices, a gift most people take for granted. Most people start the day with unlimited amount of possibilities, and energy to do whatever they desire, especially young people. For the most part, they do not need to worry about the effects of their actions.

So for my explanation, I used spoons to convey this point. I wanted something for her to actually hold, for me to then take away, since most people who get sick feel a “loss” of a life they once knew. If I was in control of taking away the spoons, then she would know what it feels like to have someone or something else, in this case MS, being in control. She grabbed the spoons with excitement. She didn’t understand what I was doing, but she is always up for a good time, so I guess she thought I was cracking a joke of some kind like I usually do when talking about touchy topics. Little did she know how serious I would become?

I asked her to count her spoons. She asked why, and I explained that when you are healthy you expect to have a never-ending supply of "spoons". But when you have to now plan your day, you need to know exactly how many “spoons” you are starting with, which you wont know until you wake up. To answer your question we’ll start your day with twelve. It doesn’t guarantee that you might not lose some along the way, but at least it helps to know where you are starting. She counted out the12 spoons. She laughed and said she wanted more. I said no, and I knew right away that this little game would work, when she looked disappointed, and we hadn't even started yet. I’ve wanted more "spoons" for years and haven’t found a way yet to get more, why should she? I also told her to always be conscious of how many she had, and not to drop them because she can never forget she has MS. I asked her to list off the tasks of her day, including the most simple. As, she rattled off daily chores, or just fun things to do; I explained how each one would cost her a spoon. When she jumped right into getting ready for work as her first task of the morning, I cut her off and took away a spoon. I practically jumped down her throat. I said " No! You don’t just get up. You have to crack open your eyes, and then realize you are late. You didn’t sleep well the night before. You have to crawl out of bed, and then you have to make your self something to eat before you can do anything else, because if you don’t, you can't take your medicine, and if you don’t take your medicine you might as well give up all your spoons for today and tomorrow too." I quickly took away a spoon and she realized she hasn’t even gotten dressed yet. Showering cost her a spoon, just for washing her hair and shaving her legs. Reaching high and low that early in the morning could actually cost more than one spoon, but I figured I would give her a break; I didn’t want to scare her right away. Getting dressed was worth another spoon.

I stopped her and broke down every task to show her how every little detail needs to be thought about. You cannot simply just throw clothes on when you are sick. I explained that I have to see what clothes I can physically put on, if my hands hurt that day buttons are out of the question. If my shoulders and back hurt I wont be able to put on a bra. If my hair is falling out I need to spend more time to look presentable, and then you need to factor in another 5 minutes for feeling badly that it took you 2 hours to do all this. I think she was starting to understand when she theoretically didn’t even get to work, and she was left with 6 spoons.

I then explained to her that she needed to choose the rest of her day wisely, since when your “spoons” are gone, they are gone. Sometimes you can borrow against tomorrow’s "spoons", but just think how hard tomorrow will be with less "spoons". I also needed to explain that a person who is sick always lives with the looming thought that tomorrow may be the day that a virus comes, or a treatment reaction, or any number of things that could be very dangerous. So you do not want to run low on "spoons", because you never know when you truly will need them. I didn’t want to depress her, but I needed to be realistic, and unfortunately being prepared for the worst is part of a real day for me.

We went through the rest of the day, and she slowly learned that skipping lunch would cost her a spoon, as well as standing on a train, or even typing at her computer too long. She was forced to make choices and think about things differently. Hypothetically, she had to choose not to run errands, so that she could eat dinner that night. When we got to the end of her pretend day, she said she was hungry. I summarized that she had to eat dinner but she only had one spoon left. If she cooked, she wouldn’t have enough energy to clean the pots. If she went out for dinner, she might be too tired to drive home safely. Then I also explained, that I didn’t even bother to add into this game, that she was so dizzy, that cooking was probably out of the question anyway. So she decided to make soup, it was easy. I then said it is only 7pm, you have the rest of the night but maybe end up with one spoon, so you can do something fun, or clean your apartment, or do chores, but you can’t do it all.

I rarely see her emotional, so when I saw her upset I knew maybe I was getting through to her. I didn’t want my friend to be upset, but at the same time I was happy to think finally maybe someone understood me a little bit. She had tears in her eyes and asked quietly “How do you do it? Do you really do this everyday?” I explained that some days were worse then others; some days I have more spoons then most. But I can never make it go away and I can’t forget about it, I always have to think about it.

I handed her a spoon I had been holding in reserve. I said simply, “I have learned to live life with an extra spoon in my pocket, in reserve. You need to always be prepared” It’s hard, the hardest thing I ever had to learn is to slow down, and not do everything. I fight this to this day. I hate feeling left out, having to choose to stay home, or to not get things done that I want to.

I wanted her to feel that frustration. I wanted her to understand, that everything everyone else does comes so easy, but for me it is one hundred little jobs in one. I need to think about the weather, my temperature that day, and the whole day's plans before I can attack any one given thing. When other people can simply do things, I have to attack it and make a plan like I am strategizing a war. It is in that lifestyle, the difference between being sick and healthy. It is the beautiful ability to not think and just do. I miss that freedom. I miss never having to count "spoons."

After we were emotional and talked about this for a little while longer, I sensed she was sad. Maybe she finally understood. Maybe she realized that she never could truly and honestly say that she understands. But at least now she might not complain so much when I can't go out for dinner some nights, or when I never seem to make it to her house and she always has to drive to mine. I gave her a hug when we walked out of the diner. I had the one spoon in my hand and I said, “Don’t worry. I see this as a blessing. I have been forced to think about everything I do. Do you know how many spoons people waste everyday? I don’t have room for wasted time, or wasted “spoons” and I chose to spend this time with you.”

Ever since this night, I have used the spoon theory to explain my life to many people. In fact, my family and friends refer to spoons all the time. It has been a code word for what I can and cannot do. Once people understand the spoon theory they seem to understand me better, but I also think they live their life a little differently too. I think it isn’t just good for understanding MS, but anyone dealing with any disability or illness. Hopefully, they don’t take so much for granted or their life in general. I give a piece of myself, in every sense of the word when I do anything. It has become an inside joke. I have become famous for saying to people jokingly that they should feel special when I spend time with them, because they have one of my "spoons".

Ha! Someone once promised to share his spoons with me.

Right, now where were we?

Spoon

**pulls out a fresh paper towel serviette**

Ads is back on his Rubifen twice a day and so isn't hungry much at dinner time. After a long day mowing the lawn, guarding the ham and shopping for shoes, neither of us was feeling hungry or wanted to cook so we didn't.

You know how there is brunch, right? BReakfast + lUNCH. There's no dinner one, is there? I was trying to retrieve it from my memory banks earlier and came up blank. I figured it was because I was hungry after thinking about brunch and came up with dinner + supper = DIPPER and that sounds stupid. I like SINNER better.

So for sinner tonight, I had 2 cheese, tomato, spring onion, ham, cucumber and sour cream on whole grain bread.

I feel so virtuous! Especially as they are my tomatoes and spring onions and would have been my cucumber, too if I hadn't bought a telegraph one wot needs eating.

I could really go some tomato and cucumber in vinegar... just like Mum used to make but without the onion. When I was little I used to pick it out; now I'm a big girl, I leave it out :0)

Shopping

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

I went to my favourite shop today and spent some money. Funny that.

After I dropped Ads at planes, I trotted next door to Bunnings intending to buy a couple of starters for the guppy tank light and ended up buying plants as well; a golden raspberry, a red raspberry and a loganberry from my half of the plum money. I figured that it came from the garden, it should go back into something long term. It can be a start of a mini summer fruit orchard down the driveway side of the property. The golden raspberry is a metre tall and fruiting, all we have to do is figure out how you know when they are ripe.

Speaking of guppies, we have babies tonight. I had to make a breeding net in a hurry to chuck Mum in to house them, the rest of the fish were enjoying a right old fry up.

Today should have been my 22 wedding anniversary, but it wasn't.

Whew!

Different perspective

**waves a tissue**

Love of hate Barack, someone took some good pics that day.



Life isn't just black and white; it's brown and grey and green, too.

Life is as colourful as you see it.



But only one per room.

Sometimes where things begin and end can be a bit warped



but it would be fun polishing the edges.

And some live a prolific life and check out when their art fries their brains.



Ear, ear.


I just wander around telling myself 30 plus surplus butternut pumpkins won't be an issue; we'll just sell them at the gate. Thank God I only planted one seedling.

I wish the watermelon had grown like that. Sulky bloody thing.