The Daily Tissue

2011-12-15T14:07:00.000+13:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Time for a few (belated) Xmas gift ideas and I know that there really IS something for everyone at THIS site.

A few of my personal favs that I would be happy to find under my Chrissy Tree (if I had a tree) are:

#5 - Bigfoot Statue

#4 - Medieval Hand Blades (Useful if you have a Bigfoot in the garden)

#3 - The Water Jet Pack (this looks like fun apart from having to get wet...)

#2 - Jedi Bathrobe

#1 - Five Fingers Knife Set

Happy shopping and don't be stingy - who wouldn't love a Giant Gummy Bear or a Syringe Needle Pen in their stocking :-)

Merry Christmas!

Fucking WOOF!

2011-08-15T23:33:00.002+12:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

I wasn't going to blog, but I will anyway.

This sad arsed, piss poor excuse for a dog is Tyler. But he does have a pedigree longer than a really long thing, if that helps.

We adopted him in January after Nushie left us forever in December. Not a day goes by that I don't miss her horribly. But now we have the shortest big dog in the world, with an all consuming appetite for anything not nailed down (that is below knee level) and a green dragon to cuddle under his blankie with then it's time to go nigh nighs. Well it IS winter...

At least he's not a drug dog

It's been a while, eh

2010-11-21T17:24:00.001+13:00

I don't blog any more. I sort of lost the urge. And the interest. And ability.

But we got a new kitten (Bubba), after we lost Thomas Cat to a vehicular misjudgement of some description. The other cats are just charmless, annoying receptacles for food. The dog is healthy but elderly, forgetful, one half blind and the other half deaf.

The boarder was a complete weirdo bitch who got her psycho arse kicked out back in March after giving me shit for objecting to a bog garden being created in the middle of the carpet in my upstairs lounge, so don't ever rent your house to Melissa Bull, she'll treat it like the wrong end of a trailer park but you could always paddle in the shallow end of the gene pool with her if you're desperate.

My sister aged into a low life lazy bitch who can't be bothered to do anything to help her elderly father and expects me to do whatever he needs because she has a job and I don't. If spending your time hiding from life in a library basement pretending you know what need, filial duty, hard times, pain and suffering is, well yep, she has a R_E_A_L job. 50 years old and never actually did any living - no kids, no pets, no proper travel, just endless boring pictures of birds and rocks and clouds in remote parts of NZ and they all look the same after the first couple of hundred, nothing and nowhere with any culture or history. Sad.

Kids are ok, weather is nice and the silverbeet, spinach, raspberries and strawberries are ready to eat. The goldfish are fat and healthy, gardens are almost weeded and the hose has 2 holes in it. Something to do with the lawnmower...

The ex of 2004 has been caught mounting a camera in the bathroom to take pics of his stepdaughters, so he is on bail waiting to see the Judge soon. What a dirty lowlife prick. Glad he's an ex.

Now my hands are tired and my arms are sore and I remember why I don't blog any more.

So, this is Bubba when he arrived at about 3 weeks old

and this is him 2 weeks ago at 8 months of age, in the plum tree the night before visiting the vet to have his own plums removed

Isn't he just lubberly??

I'll get back to you if I think of something else to say ;-)

Cleffa

2010-01-30T02:12:00.004+13:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue, cleans the monitor**

I was bored.

User: Cleverbot.

Cleverbot: What's cleverbot?

User: Cleverbot.

Cleverbot: Am I Cleverbot?

User: Cleverbot.

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User: Cleverbot.

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User: Cleverbot.

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User: Cleverbot.

Cleverbot: I am not Cleverbot.

User: Cleverbot.

Cleverbot: Damn you.

User: I fucked over cleverbot - cleverbot repeated itself :-) I win!

I bet you are bored now, too, eh. *snort*

Purrfect ending

2010-01-29T01:56:00.000+13:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Just the other day, I introduced you to Gerry Big Puss, the Ancient Wanderer.

On Tuesday, he had to be out down as the vet couldn't do anything to help his degenerating mouth issues that were sapping his appetite, and his weight. We planted him in the garden beside Merlin and near Jaffa.

Big Puss, he has gone where the good puddies go.

Somehow I think he and Merlin would have lots to chat about :-)

On acquiring more stuff

2010-01-17T15:55:00.004+13:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Back in early December, we adopted a new cat. Not sure why, it just felt like the right thing to do at the time.

Creature of impulse, me.

Anyway, we adopted this little lady here, Treasure.

After going AWOL for a couple of weeks, she came back and settled into a routine of sleeping in my bed at night, eating on the windowsill and spending her days hiding under the trailer. Suddenly and without warning this week just gone, she decided the time had come to join the household by announcing her presence at dinnertime and demanding a share. Now she dines in the kitchen and does a sweet little Oliver impersonation asking for more. It breaks my heart to tell her "get fucked, you greedy little tart". OK, I lie, it doesn't break my heart at all being the person sleeping with cat farts.

The same night Treasure showed her face again, we were ourselves adopted by this extremely elderly, emaciated and ever so slightly loony blighter here - now named Big Puss and affectionately known as Gerry (Geriatric). Cos he is.

He wandered in the door right on dinner one night and made himself at home. We aren't sure whether he was off on his trip to Rainbow Bridge and was sidetracked by the smell of freshly cooked schnitzel (yes, it WAS schnitzel night that night) or whether some complete arsewipe had dumped him thinking he was on his last legs and not worth paying a cattery to house him over the holidays in case he snuffed it, but either way he decided that our house was his house, and so was the neighbours at the other end of the driveway.

Jerry can't chew very well, has no front teeth, has his tongue hanging out all the time, can't remember when he last ate (so eats frequently) and gets gently removed from the neighbours house at night in case he carks it in their lounge. I guess they aren't very into dead cat first thing in the morning. He has a real thing for milk and finely chopped schnitzel and doesn't even deign to sniff soaked cat biscuits. Oh the peccadilloes of age and the lengths mere humans will go to to accommodate one such as he. Lew seems to like him, saying it's about time we had at least one cat that would sit on a lap, even if it was only long enough to cadge some kai. The old bugger even caught a bird last week, leading us to believe our lot of lazy excuses for felinity should watch carefully and take notes on the act of fending for oneself in a pinch.

I think they will be more likely to sit on the edge of the trough and wish that today's newest acquisitions would come close enough to sample with dry feet:

Yes, tadpoles and almost-frogs. They went in the big trough with all the goldfish because the bath is full of paradise fish fry which might get eaten.

I can tell you what the cats won't be eating tonight, our stash of this, caught by all the boys whilst in Thames last weekend

and Nushie won't be getting any, either

even though she loaned her support during clean up when the boat came home by staying out of the way.

Oh the joys of summer, eh!

But seriously, 5 freaking cats....

Household ecstacy

2010-01-05T23:54:00.001+13:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

My vacuum stopped working the other day. Just didn't switch on. I took it apart, I cleaned all the contacts, I banged the dirt out of it and reassembled it, but it just wouldn't go. I gave it to the Old Man to look at. After I disassembled it again (I'm getting good at this) because he has a sore wrist, I left it with him to see what he could do. A few days later, he said it was all good, so I could come and get it. After I reassembled it (getting faster every time!) it works brill - the intermediary switch on the cord rewind was stuffed as he just bypassed it.

The cleaner will just have to put on her big girl pants and coil it up by hand.

Anyway, as I was putting it back together, I mentioned to the Old Boy how, if he had told me 25 years ago that I would be all excited about fixing the vac, I would have told him he was nuts.

Imagine how bloody ecstatic I am over buying this, then

It's a Samsung SRS537NW 539L Side By Side Refridgerator/Freezer.

And it's mine, allllllll mine [insert scary mental house-bitch cackle here]

Fuck it's big but...

This will fuck ya

2010-01-04T00:27:00.002+13:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Ok, so the New Year is a few days old, H had a birthday yesterday, Adam broke my camera, Santa is really an old fart and I bought a new fridge cos mine snuffed it.

But I still felt I needed something else and thank Goddess for Cleverbot!

Clever wee bot - cleverbot

Cleverbot: Are you sitting comfortably?

User: Yes.

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User: A little.

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User: A little comfortably.

Cleverbot: Pink Floyd?

User: Yes, I am numb.

Cleverbot: What is number 7.

User: 6.

Cleverbot: Yes!

User: No.

Cleverbot: No!

User: I think.

Cleverbot: You do not think you are programmed.

User: Yes.

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User: No you are.

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User: As much wood as a wodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

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User: No 52.

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User: Yes.

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User: Yes!

Cleverbot: Indeed.

I'll never look at 6 the same way again...

Go have a play, it's kinda fun!

Are you the 1/100?

2009-11-19T00:20:00.002+13:00

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

2009-11-11T14:01:00.010+13:00

**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

2009-11-06T00:56:00.001+13:00

**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

2009-11-04T23:34:00.000+13:00

LMAO

**pulls out a fresh tissue and dabs**

I'm baaaack

2009-11-03T00:31:00.001+13:00

**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!

2009-08-03T22:11:00.000+12:00

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

2009-07-10T03:00:00.006+12:00

**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

2009-06-26T05:40:00.000+12:00

**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

2009-06-11T00:31:00.000+12:00

**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

2009-06-05T23:55:00.001+12:00

**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

2009-06-03T14:15:00.000+12:00

**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

2009-05-25T03:11:00.008+12:00

**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

2009-05-18T00:37:00.000+12:00

**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

2009-05-16T10:10:00.004+12:00

**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.

2009-05-12T00:23:00.001+12:00

**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

2009-05-09T00:11:00.002+12:00

**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

2009-05-03T22:35:00.002+12:00

**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

2009-04-27T23:29:00.000+12:00

**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?

2009-04-26T00:04:00.000+12:00

**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

2009-04-24T22:26:00.003+12:00

**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

2009-04-23T00:53:00.004+12:00

**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

2009-04-20T19:55:00.000+12:00

**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

2009-04-17T01:26:00.013+12:00

**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

2009-04-13T01:42:00.007+12:00

**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

2009-04-12T22:19:00.002+12:00

**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

2009-04-11T00:23:00.000+12:00

**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

2009-04-01T01:13:00.001+13:00

**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

2009-03-31T00:13:00.020+13:00

**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

2009-03-27T01:17:00.001+13:00

**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

2009-03-26T10:57:00.003+13:00

**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

2009-03-25T23:40:00.004+13:00

**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

2009-03-20T04:13:00.020+13:00

**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

2009-03-14T01:44:00.005+13:00

**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

2009-03-10T01:24:00.000+13:00

**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

2009-03-08T02:47:00.009+13:00

**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

2009-03-05T00:11:00.018+13:00

**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

2009-03-04T10:45:00.003+13:00

**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

2009-02-24T02:35:00.004+13:00

**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

2009-02-19T00:38:00.002+13:00

**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

2009-02-17T00:45:00.002+13:00

**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

2009-02-15T02:24:00.006+13:00

**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

2009-02-12T04:29:00.005+13:00

**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

2009-02-11T05:41:00.038+13:00

**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

2009-02-08T01:57:00.006+13:00

**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

2009-02-06T23:45:00.019+13:00

**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

2009-02-04T22:49:00.017+13:00

**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

2009-02-03T23:11:00.069+13:00

**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

2009-02-02T05:30:00.036+13:00

**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

2009-02-01T00:19:00.005+13:00

**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

2009-01-31T02:25:00.029+13:00

**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

2009-01-30T22:30:00.060+13:00

**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

2009-01-28T03:42:00.001+13:00

**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

2009-01-27T00:27:00.031+13:00

**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

2009-01-26T00:17:00.003+13:00

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

2009-01-25T23:59:00.001+13:00

**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

2009-01-24T02:07:00.000+13:00

**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

2009-01-23T23:42:00.003+13:00

**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.

Plums a new depth

2009-01-21T00:01:00.000+13:00

**shoves a bunch of tissues in mouth**

55 bags. 55 bags of plums sold at the gate in 2 days.

Only one tree is empty, the other still has a few bucketfuls to go. Oh oh...

I've been playing Brain Games here. They don't have plums there.

Plum crazy again

2009-01-20T01:00:00.001+13:00

**runs out of tissues**

I had an epiphany today *snigger*

I decided we should bag up some plums and hock them at the gate. So we did; 18 bags of them in just over an hour. Buckets and buckets of plums later, I'm sick of looking at them.

The last time we did this was for spending money for the kids when they went to Oz in 2005. Looking at the wastage on the ground over the last few weeks, I think we should have started earlier and next year, I expect we will.

In the meantime, the grapes are starting to colour up and before you know it, I'll be sick of them, too. I don't think my belly will survive the onslaught. Or anyone in the house.

Until then, the next time I have a fucking bright idea, I think I'll keep it to myself.

DIY

2009-01-19T00:33:00.000+13:00

**coughs into tissues*

Just when you had decided that the best thing you could buy the hypochondriac who has every thing was penicillin, along comes a link to the Symptom Checker.

They can tailor-make a disease to drive any half way competent health professional to the pub.

Bottoms up.

Plum crazy

2009-01-18T23:19:00.003+13:00

**pulls out a handful of fresh tissues**

This is a little bit amusing.

I giggled over it tonight whilst sitting in the swing seat, listening to the light rain patter on the canvas above and, briefly, the possum falling out of the tree behind me. All I could hear was pattering above and the creak of the swing as it rocked back and forward until the rain eased off and once more the sound of plums missing the net and hitting the ground reminded me that I've variously disposed of 3 buckets of plums, there is 7 odd litres of plum sauce in the freezer, a bucketful of "eaters" in the kitchen and a lot of tree left to catch in the net. I thought I might branch out into plum crumble, plum and apple pie or perhaps plum sauce muffins next.

The Universe has been very kind to me lately and so I bagged up some plums to give away and dropped them off. I know, I shouldn't expect thanks but simple manners are free. Aren't they?

Maybe they aren't. But this next clip puts all things into perspective. It's very good.

Nick Vujicic

I'm off to bed to count plums. Recipes, that is.

Yes, well

2009-01-17T01:02:00.000+13:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

What's wrong with this picture...

It came from here.

I have 3 buckets of plums in my kitchen. There could be something wrong with that picture, too.

Cooking

2009-01-16T01:37:00.003+13:00

**pulls out another towel**

It's too hot. Seriously. I was sitting here enjoying the night's coolness and pissing about surfing and thinking about bed when I Stumbled on this. A very good plain language description or what MS is, what it does and how it does it. Which reminded me why it's too bloody hot. But it also reminded me of my own progression this past 12 months and stuff I'd probably selectively forgotten.

I've been down this road before, or one just like it. I'm just not going to end up in bed for 6 months again and I am not going to use that wheel chair and that should be all the motivation I need to start climbing out of it.

Eh.

A few days real downtime would be nice, though, I'm that tired...

The big kids went to the pub with the Old Man tonight for karaoke and had a blast. They are 18, in a pub with an 80 year old, singing varying renditions of popular songs into a microphone in front of other ~~weirdos~~ people who like to do that and had fun. I find that quite frightening.

And to think I turned down Ritchie Pickett at a bar with him tomorrow night. Last time I went to Ritchie Pickett at a pub with him, 25 years ago, some bastard stole my wheels. I didn't want to risk it happening again - the taxi fare home is a killer and dealing with the cops would have been funny if it wasn't so pathetic but that's a story unto itself and for another time.

Anyway, a new feature I thought up - a Random Sniff. Just a completely useless and potentially unforgettably trivial collection of bits of data.

A Random Sniff:

Q: What is christianity?

A: It is the belief that a two- thousand-year-old jewish zombie
can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh
and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master,
so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present
in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake
to eat an apple off a magical tree in a wonderland.

Ok, so that was different...

Gardening in pyjamas

2009-01-15T00:35:00.004+13:00

**pulls out a dry towel**

We have had some wild weather - a swarm of thunderstorms rolled up the country yesterday and roamed right over the top of us. I went out in it to make sure the stormwater drains were clear and spent 20 minutes cleaning out the long drain at the end of the house that has been gradually silting up. Because it was still daylight, I didn't get a fancy light show for my trouble - the jafas got that as it moved out to sea off Auckland's east coast.

At 6.30pm, the stormvue tracker looked like this

and what that lot deposited on the Kaimais looked like this

It was so cold when I went to bed, I shut my windows.

So, this morning was clear and bright and washed clean and it's a delight to potter around in one's night attire (you deal with the prospect of nudity). Until the dogs started barking down at the park; and the people started yelling. After a while, the yelling got to be a pain so I wandered over to the edge of the bank for a squizz and saw what looked like two people, 3 dogs in a screaming mess in the middle of the fields - two dogs attacking, one man trying get them off, neither on a leash (he didn't even have one on him) and I'm bloody sure when he pulled the main attacker away, it was tugging on an arm.I hope that was just my crappy eyesight and I wish I hadn't seen that.

One cellphone, one phone call and police and ambulance were on their way. Reinforcements showed up from across the bridge. The ambos worked on this person for thirty minutes or more. The police came to the door. The council animal control people called me.

I think I want to move house - that's 4 111 calls in just over a month, 3 domestic related scenarios being played out within earshot (one bashing/ one loud yelling and swearing/ one yelling and swearing and shrieking on the other side of the bridge. Jeez sound travels...) and two unleashed, out of control dogs chowing down on something they shouldn't. There's something really fucking whack about this sudden influx of public nastinesses. Once upon a time, all we had to worry about were unsupervised softballers kids and the touch rugby brats, thieving little non pink bastards, noisy clubroom functions and pissed people shouting at the person next to them in the car park just prior to doing doughnuts in the gravel at 2 in the morning. Life was so much simpler, then.

We get to pay the council $1400 odd bucks a year for the privilege of having this lot for neighbours. And the 1.5 acre "front lawn" with established trees which is a delight that the council mows for us each week. Thank God they do, I don't have that long an extension cord!

The other thing I was going to say (ha! I remembered all by myself!) was about this and this

A World War II Spitfire aircraft, due to fly at this weekend's Wings Over Wairarapa air show, crashed at the Masterton Aerodrome today.

The Mark 9 Spitfire crashed just after 3pm, said a fire communications spokesman.

The pilot, whom 3 News said was owner Doug Brooker, was not injured in the crash. However, the plane would not be able to fly in the air show now.

The cause of the crash was not known.

"Nobody actually saw it, because of course the threshold of that particular runway is out of view from anybody on the aerodrome," show director Tom Williams told 3 News.

The recently rebuilt plane was going to fly decorated 91-year-old World War II spitfire pilot John Pattison over Wellington.

Mr Pattison was awarded France's highest honour, the Legion d'Honneur, by French president Jacques Chirac.

He was a commanding officer of 485 New Zealand Spitfire Squadron during the war, and was wounded in battle after his plane was shot down.

I might have a pic or two of the airshow to post next week, Sis and hubby are heading down in the camper van tomorrow.

Numpty

2009-01-14T01:39:00.007+13:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

I'm feeling a bit hammered tonight and I haven't had a drop to drink. Well, not of anything exciting.

I trotted off to the doc today, as ya do, with my shopping list in one hand and my printed de-brief of the duration and unpleasant aftermath of solumedrol in the other (which made carrying my cellie and keys rather difficult, so I stuffed them in the pockets of my cargoes) and got myself a little barrow load of pills and my Numpty Nana toe checked out. If you are wondering what my Numpty Nana toe is, it's the great toe on my right foot that has gone a bit numb. Ok a lot numb. It goes hand in hand ('scuse the pun) with my left hand's frequent numbness, which is occasionally accompanied by my right hand's random numbness.

You get the picture, eh.

The doc told me I needed to stop sleeping for more than 40 minutes in the day time to compensate for not sleeping in the night time and that doing so, combined with taking heavy duty painkillers (for the sore bits) and anti-histamine tablets dispensed for my hay fevery type symptoms (which were never an issue before the last couple of years, not being an allergic beasty to begin with) even if I'm not hay fevery at the time, would keep me asleep through the night.

I don't think he's ever met the Worms.

As fab as he is, even doctors are not immune to a complete lack of understanding of how something physical that sounds so trivial can drive every aspect of one's daily (or nightly) existence. In this case, out of bed at 2 in the morning. Like now.

So, whilst now having a cupboard full of meds again, all of which have a specific purpose in mind, none of them overcome (let alone alleviate) the Worms which means if I take all of them together, I get to stagger around like a drunk at two in the morning instead of just staggering around like someone with MS who's having a regular really crappy night.

But I'm still semi-conscious.

Oh well, at least my curt summary of Five Days in Solumedrol-Land will be winging its digital way over the hill to the Neuro for future reference sometime soon.

In the meantime, I'll keep on sleeping as needed to handle the fatigue (it has been bloody hot, after all) and if I'm grumpy and shitty when I wake up, it probably won't look any different to the shitty and grumpy version when I'm pretending I can function on 4 hours tossing and turning and twitching which represents sleep each night.

I'm a real fucking charmer like that :0)

The moon is on my bed now and so is Tinks (she's having a bit of Mum and cat bedtime bonding the last couple of nights) so I'm going to go lie in it and count worms. It ~~bleats~~ beats the hell out of counting sheep.

Floyd, Waiting for the Worms - it's loud.

Those bloody hammers always mesmerised me.

There it is again

2009-01-12T00:23:00.001+13:00

**pulls open the curtains**

There's that big ol' moon, all big and podgy in the sky and just begging to shine on me in bed tonight.

Well, something had to, eh.

But the big, full moon is like a blessing shining down on us, even without the addition of Pams, hmm? A big Universe smiling down. Well, Mr Smiley Universe struck again, today. I can't say what, and I can't say who, but today someone bought something for me that I have been wanting for ages but couldn't really afford. Just because they could.

And it doesn't get much nicer than that.

Thanks really is too small a word sometimes, don't you think?

And a little light relief :0)

2009-01-08T01:57:00.000+13:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

I'm too tired to write, so will let the pictures paint a few thousand words.

Nature's best photography

Creepy beach sculptures

Trilobis 65 Floating Home

And a sad ending for some hard workers.

hmmpf

2009-01-07T01:45:00.002+13:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

I am soooooo over this whole MS thing. It pisses me off no end that it bites so hard at just doing ordinary things.

I brought home a very large and very dead punga the other day from my sister (in 2 pieces, it was too big and heavy to handle in one). It's been on the list of things to do for a while, even though at the time I said I'd take it I had no idea where the hell I was going to put it.

Since then, I had decided I needed a new garden, having not "created" anything for a while and feeling rather bereft for the lack, so I had started planning it and the arrival of the punga (and some baby agaves) prompted me to get digging and just do it.

So I did. Now I have a neat new garden bed outside my bedroom window with the pungas in pride of place and so far populated with a couple of red flaxes, a hebe (grown from cutting), a ponytail palm (thanks Shaz), a variegated yukka (thanks Vic), a bit of this and a bit of that and approximately half of my calla lilies. Next to go in will be the best part of a hundred irises, some daffs and lots of marigolds (when I sow the seeds, they germinate and grow big enough to transplant). By then, I will have decided where the next garden is going.

I should also have made a list of changes needed in the vege garden next year - less veg (just basics like spuds, pumpkin, toms, corn, shallots and cucumbers), more fruits (white alpine strawberries, boysenberries and raspberries) and decided which method to use to carry the berry fruit vines I want to focus on and where to plant the tomatoes all in one spot instead of 4 separate locations. I should also have figured out which annual type flowers I want in (less californian poppies, more carnations and other poppies), planned where to put a huge plot of sunflowers and found homes for all the cuttings of various kinds I have coming along.

Just thinking about it makes me tired. More tired. Thank God Sequel mowed the lawn.

When I was at my sister's the other day, I admired her compost bins and wished I had one like them. This afternoon, my neighbour the lawnmowing man came over with a 240l compost bin that one of his clients didn't want any more, asking did I want it? Cool, eh! What else could I say but "fuck, yes please!"

So I did. Well via Adam in a half asleep, partially coherent fashion - it was nap time, after all.

Now the contents of my compost drum has a real home, a rotting one to be proud of. I also have a new green waste compost pile at the other end of the garden, made from the top skimmings of my new beds. It should be nicely composted down by next spring when I need it.

Am I boring you? Surely not! I bet I'm amusing the hell out of my bloody mother, the real gardener and inspiration for my efforts- I'm not a gardener's arsehole lol

But I am sick and I am tired and I am pushing my weakening arms and legs to harden up and get some bloody muscle tone going (even though it's pretty damn good anyway); that old "use it or lose it". I'm very scared I'm going to lose it - I've been a bit too sedentary the past couple of months.

Today a compost bin, tomorrow, maybe a backpack spray unit. Next week, a Crossfire would be nice and the month after that, that really really big thing I want.

Yeah, don't I wish.

Mercurial

2009-01-04T02:34:00.004+13:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

You've heard all those "What do you call an irishman in a/under/with..." jokes, eh.

We had a wee session of them at New Years

Bob
Doug
Douglas
Mat
Bill
Sean
Russell
Jack

etc.

Simple humour.

We watched a re-run of the final episode of M*A*S*H tonight, and I thought about how many times I'd watched M*A*S*H over the years and what kept it funny all that time and I decided it was simple humour. I'm finding I want most things simplified at the moment - a shorter/faster everything because I get so tired so easily. In a vain attempt to alleviate the stiffness and fatigue, I thought a bit of gardening might do the trick, so I've started digging a new one, cos I've hardly done anything other than pull a few weeds, harvest a few bits, do a bit of trimming and pruning and a lot of tying up/down.

Hardly endorphin-inducing.

I'm struggling a little with the concept of injustice, unfairness at what life hands you when you're making other plans, and why I can't have the other plans instead. Life's not fair, it's more a dark mahogany colour.

And I'm tired of activity, heat and sunshine. Phones and visitors (don't get me started, all I need now after today's fiasco is a visit from J&J over the hill and their tribe of unsupervised and ill-equipped kids carrying unhealthily weird names) playing taxi and just generally taking care of business. I was a rolling example of the advert on TV, coming home the other day, the one where the father nods off and kills them all. That can't be good. Time to downsize my expectations of my own abilities for a bit and not get hot.

Ads was saying tonight that one day he'd take me on holiday. I said the perfect holiday for me at the moment was utter solitude, peace and quiet. It sounds like pure heaven.

I can't find anything Heavenly about life in general at the moment.

PS - there's a very simple pleasure to be found in gently stroking big, fat monarch butterfly caterpillars. Try it.

PPS - tomorrow I'm going to start making sweet plum sauce.

PPPS - if you put blueberry jam into leftover whipped cream, you get blueberry cream. It's yum. You should try that, too.

Flying

2009-01-03T02:40:00.001+13:00

**pulls out a fresh box of tissues**

At 5.07PM on January 3rd, 1991, after 17 hours hard slog, a baby girl was born.

She grew up straight and she grew up beautiful.

Today she celebrated her 18th birthday. Happy birthday my darling, we love you heaps.

Resolve

2009-01-02T01:41:00.005+13:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Bearing in mind I don't do NY resolutions, today has brought forth a need to sort my shit out.

I can't solve the two biggest issues in my life, but I can do something to sort out the two most bloody annoying - the Offspring.

I can't deny it, even to myself, that I am getting worse. I'm over heating; I have the fatigue knocking on the door; my concentration isn't very good and my hands are numb more often that not. Both are treating my efforts to work through these problems as nothing and becoming demanding of my resources - Ads is once more attempting to assert a dominant male role and H is treating the house like a hotel which functions based on her frequently changing whims.

And I'm sick of it. Master Caveman came close to a serious fuck up today, whilst Ms Guest just pissed me every 30 minutes for something to do.

We have just spent two lovely nights in Thames eating ourselves into The Guinness Book of Gluttony with the loveliest people we know, but a combination of extreme fatigue and a road accident delay on the way home, followed by unloading the car by myself sent me off for a snooze, abruptly ended the third time by kids arguing over who was cooking what, a door slamming tanty from Ads and a couple of home truths from me before I gave up and went for drive in a huff (sans cellie) where I ended up wandering around the family graves in the foggy gloaming and hugging the huge camellia tree for a while before setting to rights all the offerings left on graves in the rest of the cemetery that had been blown over by the weather.

Today held too many "whys" and "whats" and none seem to have answers.

Out with the old

2008-12-31T01:29:00.003+13:00

**pulls out a fresh box of tissues**

I haven't been to bed yet, but it is already New Year's Eve out there. And in here. I've been sitting in the arbor with the garden lights going, post beer, post Pams, pondering what this day really means.

It's the final day in a sequence of days (hours minutes seconds nanoseconds) created by man (He who had the audacity to measure the year at 365.25 days and really fuck the calendar up) to measure the passing of His time - it's only people need that sort of accuracy, Nature takes care of her own.

This day should have been my parents' 53rd wedding anniversary, but Mum didn't make it that far.

It could be the anniversary of the birth of lots of noteworthy people or the death of others largely unfamiliar.

It could be the day that I empty the bin of the unnecessary baggage this last year has brought and do an Eminem and clean out my closets. Sitting out there at 2 in the morning listening to plums hitting the ground and the nets, I thought about why the tree has such a huge crop this year that branches are breaking off in the wind and rain under the weight whilst large amounts of new growth sprout all around the base. I think the tree approves of its new treatment. Last year it was buried behind corrugated iron and tilt doors until we moved it all. And I say we, giving Ian all credit for what he did around the garden. But not for what I did afterwards.

I painted the landscape and I made the place happy and kept myself sane at the same time growing things and deriving satisfaction from harvesting my labours - strawberries, rhubarb, cabbage, peas, lettuce, radishes, gherkin, plums, spring onions and chives so far, tomatoes corn, cucumbers, sunflowers, shallots, more peas, more cabbages, more rhubarb to come soon.

And so, sitting in the dark inside that landscape, and the simplicity of the bounty it's given back and I thought about all those New years Resolutions I won't be making because it's bullshit and all the hype of a new year beginning that I won't be heavily indulging in and that my focus should be on letting go of those things which serve no purpose but to hurt me, so that I might find a little peace and freedom to savour what tiny victories I achieved during a year of loss and adjustment.

I am becoming resigned to the possibility that the numbness in my hands and feet might not go away, even that it could get worse. That my legs might just continue to weaken. And that clonazepam might end up a daily feature again - and thus risk the addiction again. I've hit a brick wall in fighting the MonSter so I think I need a new strategy. I think I should start by taking care of me. Because no one else will.

But first I think I have to find "me" again.

In my quest for painfreedom I might check the bottom of the glass bottles tonight at our favourite family watering hole at the FlatCat's in Thames. It's been a year of pain and misery, of losing what matters, fear and tears. But today, that year ends. Tomorrow's pain might be more hang over related... Flattie's 2 x Canterbury Cream for $20 purchase might ensure that...

May this new calendar year bring you the very best it can. Without the hangover.

Percentages

2008-12-28T00:14:00.000+13:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Are you one of the 98 or one of the 2?

I'm a 2.

Figures.

Dusted

2008-12-27T00:17:00.001+13:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue, dabs up the crumbs**

Well, another christmas has been bought and wrapped and unwrapped and cooked and served and eaten, the remains of trifle and salads and ham hoarded carefully to be eked out as long as possible.

There's a bit of aromatic indigestion doing the rounds, too, and it's not just the dog. She just seems to get all the blame because she ate all the leftovers.

Our day was good, we broke bread in the evening with friends and family, having been blessed with lots of yummy treats and thoughtful gifts during the day, not enhanced by a bit of a meltdown on my part after mowing the lawn in the sun at midday. After some temper tantrums and a sleep, I was merely snarky and irritable and all the lovely pressies couldn't hide the fact that the one thing I wanted for Christmas is the one thing I'll never get.

I bet I'm not the only one felt like that, eh... I wish we could email Santa and find them in our stocking on Christmas morning.

Knock out

2008-12-26T01:02:00.004+13:00

**pulls out a fresh bottle**

Great Christmas. Lovely.

This is what happens when one has a beer (or two) too many.

One ends up a bit mothered from watching it.

I hope you got mothered, too.

Here's Johnny

2008-12-25T00:01:00.000+13:00

**Remembers Kirsty**

Merry Christmas - It was a toss up between The Pogues with Kirsty, or Lennon.

They both won.

Amen.

One sleep

2008-12-24T00:11:00.001+13:00

**makes another milo**

One more sleep - The Night Before Xmas.

Two sleeps

2008-12-23T00:01:00.000+13:00

**thinks about cookies and milk**

Just a couple more - Achmed

*grabs box of tissues, mops up**

Don't forget to check out Santa's mail box.

Three sleeps

2008-12-22T01:41:00.001+13:00

**...**

Three sleeps - hysterical stuff with KBW (not for sensitive souls)

Four sleeps

2008-12-21T01:38:00.003+13:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Four sleeps - Historical stuff

Well it was either that or this.

I'd go postal before the first night was over if I lived next door to that shit...

Five sleeps

2008-12-20T01:31:00.000+13:00

**snorts all over the tissues**

I'm going to count down to Christmas in Video.

Five Sleeps - the True Blue Collar boy himself, Larry the Cable Guy.

Give it a whirl

2008-12-18T01:35:00.002+13:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

The Old Boy has been making a little patio thingy and wanted pavers from around here - specifically the ones that match both our/my patios. I had a pile stacked ready to take away, which he didn't think would be enough, although I thought there were. When he was almost finished, he ran out of cobbles and needed 3 more. I knew where 2 were but the third eluded us, despite looking around in all the likely places. That is until I walked past one sitting in broad daylight right beside the front path as he was leaving. He had just enough.

It was the same for the brick path in Little Arbor and pavers for the Squat in the corner.

Enough.

Remember this post a few months ago?

I've gone right off everything really, or had done until we got $86 in Lotto and I spent it on buying paint to get on with upstairs cos that's what I asked the Universe for the other say and now it's provided it, I better follow through if I want more stuff to appear like that, eh! Next week is Round Two in Vic's Nan's garden, destroying 50 years of jungle to salvage plants before they all get sprayed. Instant garden, my idea of "ooooooooooh baby!".

I have lots more stuff I want to "appear" - a nice BBQ is next

We've been eating off the bbq for the past two weeks. It showed up a couple of days after I posted a message to FreeCycle. I still have paint left over to continue with in the autumn and all Nan's plants survived the transplanting and are thriving.

I wish the big asks were so easily accomplished... Gods, how I wish.

Watching/listening to: Split Enz, giving it a whirl.

Those were the days...

Get funky

2008-12-17T00:24:00.000+13:00

**pulls strings**

A little wake up funkiness from the fabulous Carlos. Because I can.

PS sux to be you, Mark cos I forgot to come and fix that ActiveX problem on ya computer, eh... and you can't see YouTube vids, eh... oh well, that another 5 minutes of time you won't waste on here then, eh ;-)

You could always bring the box around at christmas and I could spend like 3 minutes or something fixing it, call it ya chrissy pressie and then you could pat me on the head and say "good girl".

Unless I'm pissed.

I don't drink and screw. Especially with computers.

Fuckers.

Wonderful

2008-12-16T01:05:00.006+13:00

If you watched that clip and listened to the words, you might be having a hyperglycemic episode from the sweet, schmaltzy sentiments or you might be a little more philosophical about them and be on the same page as me right now.

But probably not. However, I will get you up to speed, never fear.

As you know, I've been reading The Power of Now and come to a few conclusions, despite not having read it all (or probably intending to, it's a bit OTT, ya know?).

The main feature is that Tolle has a couple of basic Truths contained within the heavy padding of some rather intense spirito-babble (yeah, I made that up, deal with it *snort*) possibly induced by better drugs than I have. These are basics that most people probably miss a lot in the stresses and commitments of ordinary daily life, especially me. I think Tolle is correct, there really is only Now - we can't change what's gone and we can't predict what's coming, all we can have any input to is now. And that Now is very important.

I can think of at least 3 regular readers of this blog who have probably learnt to appreciate the importance of Now, even if they do tend to forget it sometimes. Mark, you are obviously meant to be here and if your heart won't quit and dangling your arse in the breeze to string those bloody lights didn't kill you, I guess the Guys Upstairs just haven't figured out what to do with you yet.

Peter? Correct me if I'm wrong but I suspect you are similarly placed - I think they might have all but thrown you back as well?

And Jamie... there is a tiny glimpse of a silver lining within the big, black cloud hanging over you both. It's called Now and Now is all we have.

I know I should be making much better use of it...

This Philosophical Epiphany was brought to you by the letters BB, the number 8 and the colour green. I like green.

PS I've forgotten what the other point is that I wanted to expound on. It's your lucky night after all, innit. As for Rob Thomas.. hmmmmmmmmmm yummy.

Painted on

2008-12-15T22:52:00.001+13:00

**pulls out a fresh ~~tissue~~ wallpaper**

I might never change my desktop again

and then again...

PS - there's no Dylan there.

PPS - I hate teaching ~~brats~~ people to parallel park.

Pound

2008-12-14T00:32:00.000+13:00

**fuck the tissues**

I am sure that you can think of at least 10 very good reasons why one should not smack oneself on the hand with a hammer.

I needed only one; BECAUSE IT FUCKING HURTS.

So does hitting one's shins on a hard, plastic box corner, standing on sharp objects in bare feet, pruning Alberic, wearing long gumboots in the sun whilst tending the fire in the pit and dropping the pitchfork on one's unshod foot.

It's been a busy few days.

Perigee

2008-12-13T01:16:00.002+13:00

**issues a fresh tissue**

It used to be once. Then it was twice. Now it's three times a night.

That's how many times I am getting up at night lately and I hate it.

I've tried going to bed early; I've tried going to bed late. I've done the pills. I've tried it pissed, with wheat sacks and without and I still can't capture that illusive thing of Legend - sleep untroubled by pain or spasticity, jerks (Sperm Donor got dumped by the Buffet Bird btw) or writhing snakes (oh yeah, we are anticipating Simon to ring and stalk H once more when she turns 18 in a couple of weeks like he did on her 16th birthday, he reckoned he could wait until she was an adult and was no longer "under my thumb" enough to stop him).

Never mind, at least lately there has been a glorious moon cascading across my bed to ~~not~~ sleep in.

Magic, eh.

2008-12-08T00:25:00.000+13:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

Stuck

2008-12-06T23:40:00.010+13:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue, dunno why**

The big kids had their bbq party tonight. It was entertaining.

I spent the day putting up the christmas lights in the arbors, shopping for pretty things like cable ties and bungy cords and playing taxi all over the place. H had invited the Sperm Donor and SD (who admits he forgot it was on until she rang him this afternoon) brought his latest piece with him, enough alcohol to sustain them (including a bottle of wine with one glassful left in it, which she promptly dispatched) but no food. Well not so much the latest, it's the same piece he had his paws all over in the restaurant way back in July, after splitting with his other piece, that he got back with not long afterwards, who he isn't with now and is back with the Buffet Bird again.

Confused? Not as confused as BB, all liquored up as she was. They sat at the picnic table and he stroked her arse (I kid you not, Ads was gob-smacked, so blatant was he in front of all the kids), touched her every 3.27 seconds (average, the kids compared notes afterwards) and played a little game of "I'm the Man, I can still pull a bird, see, even if my 2 previous wives kicked me to the kerb) and at one point wandered inside (he wasn't completely sober when they arrived, either) and said he hoped I didn't mind him bringing her, but she was already at his house *rolls eyes*, so I said "I don't care, but stop stroking her arse, ok? it's not on".

Ads snorted and left the kitchen for a minute.

When I finally sat down to eat, I sat next to her but they were so engrossed in talking animatedly about who owned what furniture and appliances in his flat and how could his roomie not own hardly anything and that everything in her house was hers and he said it didn't matter where he lived as long as he could get to work and somewhere rural was ok... on and on and on in what sounded like a prep list for them moving in together... I thought "cool, I don't have to make conversation, I can talk to all the kids instead!".

So I did and it was much more fun chatting with teens than him, anyway. It always is.

Then Sequel and I went upstairs to finish sealing the new seams on the repaired top balcony with No More Nails and the flooring stuff that's up there and she said she knew BB from work and she is an alcoholic. The kids had already figured that out.

It was not long after that that I stepped in the patch of NMN and glued my toes together...

Great Southern Land

2008-12-05T23:47:00.000+13:00

**pulls out a fresh tissue, wipes streaming eyes**

Rules for visiting the South Island are as follows:

1. Pull your pants up. You look like an idiot.
2. Turn your cap right, your head ain't crooked.
3. Let's get this straight: it's called a 'gravel road.' I drive a Ute because I want to. No matter how slow you drive, you're gonna get dust on your Lexus. Drive it or get out of the way.
4. They are sheep. That's why they smell like sheep. They represent wool & food to us. Get over it. Don't like it? SH1 goes north, find it and F**k off
5. So you have a $60,000 car. We're impressed. We have $350,000 tractors that are driven only 3 weeks a year.
6. Every person in the South waves. It's called being friendly. Try to understand the concept.
7. Yeah. We eat trout, salmon, deer and duck. You really want sushi and caviar? It's available at the corner bait shop.
8. The 'Opener' refers to the first day of duck season. It's a religious holiday, we will observe it!
9. We open doors for women. That's applied to all women, regardless of age.
10. No, there's no 'vegetarian special' on the menu. Order steak, or you can order the Chef's Salad and pick off the 2 pounds of ham and turkey.
11. When we set a table, there are three main dishes: meats, vegetables and breads. We use three spices: salt, pepper, and Watties Tomato sauce!
Oh, yeah We don't care what you folks in Ponsonby call that stuff you eat. IT AIN'T REAL CHILLI!!
12. You bring 'Coke' into my house, it better be brown, wet and served over ice. You bring 'Mary Jane' into my house, she better be cute, know how to shoot, drive a truck, and have long hair.
13. High School Rugby is as important here as the All Blacks, the Highlanders and the Crusaders and a heap more fun to watch.
14. Yeah, we have golf courses. But don't hit the water hazards, it spooks the fish.
15. Turn down that blasted car stereo! That thumpity-thump cr@p ain't music, anyway. We don't want to hear it anymore than we want to see your boxers! Refer back to #1!

What a winner

2008-12-04T00:09:00.001+13:00

**giggles and pulls out a fresh tissue; wipes**

If "Phinny" is that lucky, how come they are flogging themselves milking the masses in two hour chunks using statistical data freely available to the public?

Methinks someone is telling porkies...!

I figure that someone desperate enough to leave that on my windscreen at the Warehouse tonight needs all the free advertising they can get.

No-one said it had to be positive

Cleaning up

2008-12-03T00:19:00.001+13:00

**pulls out a nostalgic tissue**

I was going to say something but that's stripped my mind of coherent thought. And added a few years to my personal chronologometer.