Slacker

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

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

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

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

Murphy strikes again

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

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

Bloody typical.

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

Crap, in other words.

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

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

I don't want much, do I?

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

Babies

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Such restraint *sigh*

One or the birds

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh dear...

On the button

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

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

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

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

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

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

Suckers

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

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

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

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


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

Kids, don't try this at home

**pulls out a mop**

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

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

This place looks like someone forgot to water the garden.

Kolmanskop, a ghost town buried in the sand.



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

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

Jeez my kids are evil.

Passing through

**empties a box of tissues**

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you Sue, for being you.

Got

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mousey

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

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

Same shit, different year *sigh*

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

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

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

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

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

Watching you watching me

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

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

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

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



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

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

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



**waves**

Yaktion

**pulls out a fresh tissue and blows**



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