Jock McPlop and Sun Tzu

I’m waiting for someone to answer a phone. I have it on speaker, since I’m up to five minutes of brr-brr brr-brr. The ringing beats the dumbo-gumbo service announcements intercut with upbeat (!) music when on hold. I never feel very upbeat listening to that hold music, unless feeling Hulk smash counts. It might.

In the interim, I need to start keeping more thorough notes for this thing. I’ve been pretty much sitting on twitter the last couple of days (or rather, the spare time therein), and could I possibly stop qualifying every damn thing I say?

Ahem. Sitting on twitter, check. Laughing so hard I can’t breathe, check. Wanting to vomit and bawling at the next scroll, check. The feed from Gaza and the current atrocities is being documented with photos of dead children. I’ll pass by on the effectiveness of shock in transmitting a message, because really, I’m not shocked by this, I’m hurt by it - and I can’t do much but protest. And cry. Well, whoop-de-doo. Not to denigrate my own feelings, but it isn’t very useful. And worse, I’ve seem some snide commentary on people switching off on photos of dead children from Gaza, but not from continued no-news about asylum seekers. Yes good, let’s all feel smug and superior about our humanist cred. Or, let’s not and say we did. Or just not.

Given civilian bombings, planes full of people being shot down and the supposed end of the world the Abbott government is trying to save us from (yeah, I’m not seeing it either), perhaps the current thing on facebook isn’t such an odd duck. The idea is that you post three positive things per day and nominate three of your friends to do the same. I’ll confess I’m not nominating any friends, because I don’t share my toys. Strangely or not, my facebook and twitter worlds rarely collide, so one of yesterday’s positives was a great way to share some of the fun of twitter, to wit: #RemoveALetterRuinABand.

My personal favourites:

• Crowded Hose
• Dire Traits
• Taking Heads

Since I have strange associative thinking, somehow the last one lead me to thinking about a link I saw from an anti-vaccination something-or-other. I didn’t read past the first few lines because I was tired and then angry (I know, I was shocked too - I so rarely get angry, right? Right? RIGHT?). Possibly I fancied taking a few heads, which is pretty boring linkage, but so it goes.

The last few go-rounds from anti-vax palaver have included statements around how “Big Pharma” want us to vaccinate our kids because they make money out of it.

It’s an odd argument to make in Australia, where the majority of children’s diseases are on the immunisation schedule and therefore covered by Medicare. The ones that aren’t covered, as chickenpox wasn’t when small lad was getting his shots, can be paid for by anyone wanting the vaccine.

You could, if you really felt like it, start arguing that Medicare is paid for by us, and thus zee BP’s are still making a quid, but seriously? Or #srsly? Big drug companies are essentially businesses - built around the idea of providing a product and getting paid money for it. They may also be the source of all evil multi-layered conspiracies against the rest of us schlubs (if that role hasn’t been taken by Google), but I digress.

Some of the arguments against the BP’s have the sense that several tens of exclamation marks were removed in the final edit - for tone, there’s nothing like shrill hysteria to make me listen, no ma’am - and boy does it make me tired. Some of that shrillness is probably derived from the stridency of the anti-vax arguments themselves, which I’m going to avoid for the moment beyond a something-to-declare statement at the end of this post.

That BP’s have little or no regard for their customers is nothing new - and here I link a transcript from an episode of 4 Corners from 2004 - A Bitter Pill. Worth the read.

But the mercenary nature of capitalism and the possible profiteering by pharmaceutical companies is an odd argument for refusing vaccination for either yourself or your children, particularly where the vaccines are free.

If your choice is to forgo vaccination, then whether the vaccine costs anyone money is completely moot. Your answer is no, so you won’t be handing over the loot. If your next argument is you shouldn’t have to pay for other people’s anything via Medicare, then let me introduce you to society and wow that’s the kind of mercenary thinking that Big Pharma does, isn’t it? Sun Tzu might have said, “To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy”, but whose aim in life is it to be a turd?

I can get behind the idea that the behaviour of Big Pharma and their attitudes towards research and development need adjustment. Most forward R&D (such as an HIV vaccine) is not done by companies, but by independent research funded by taxpayers, which is simply insane. They’re making a product for sale, ergo they are responsible for costs in R&D, or at least the lion’s share. Independent testing and research is crucial, but shouldn’t be driving directions for companies whose livelihood is in providing medicine.

And here is where I have the real problem with anti-vaccination arguments using Big Pharma. In arguing either for or against vaccination, the connection is counter-intuitive: “I’m not vaccinating my children because you’re just making money off it!”.

Err, they’re supposed to make money off of it. I’d rather pay a drug company to make drugs than than Wee Jock Poo-Pong McPlop from Aberdeen, whose qualifications consist of being an offscreen toilet cleaner in an episode of Blackadder Goes Forth.

As a secondary argument (possibly quaternary), it must be nice to not have to repeat yourself with your reasons for refusing to vaccinate. But it’s weak, and it undermines the other stuff.

Something to Declare? Thank you, I will. I studied immunology and microbiology at uni, work in health, and get the point of epidemiology. We’re vaccinated in our house, and I fundamentally disagree with you not vaccinating your children: the risk is not only to you, but to other people you may infect. That risk rarely seems to come up as anything in anti-vax literature. But, if you wish to object, even conscientiously, I’m not going to stand in your way. That’s freedom, baby.

One last thing. Small lad dropped a cup in the kitchen and it rolled away. He watched it and declaimed, “Fly! Fly!”. When I answered, “Thou may’st revenge!” he asked what I was on about. I really need to catch him up on Bill.

Love and peace, peeps.

The Stocking Filler (Late, or Very, Very Early)

I should complain about the weather more often: yesterday the mercury rose to summer-like levels.

It's 5:00 am and an anaesthetist is waiting in a small room. A cockroach observes from an air vent, waiting for the doctor to leave: there is a crumb on the floor with the cockroach's name on it. Or would be if the names of cockroaches could fit on the surface of a crumb.

Yesterday small lad was playing his new Lego Star Wars III game - this was his best Christmas ever, or he was imagining it (I paraphrase). Since Christmas, if it isn't the DS, it's the (actual) Lego. It's so nice to get Christmas presents right! Onya Santa! Earlier in the morning he rescued me from my 2am sleeplessness - he doesn't remember what happened, but he appeared around three, bleary eyed and looking for a cuddle, so I escorted him back to bed and lay down with him for a bit. It's the quickest way to get the light off, believe me. Aside from the back pain from sleeping on the edge of the bed, I had a lovely sleep. So did he, which works out nicely for everyone.

It's 5:02 am: Doctor Darling holds Gemma close in his manly arms as her tears dry prettily on her cheeks. They move apart and look deeply into each other's eyes, finally acknowledging their feelings for one another. Gemma tilts her head up, lips parted softly, and the breathless sexual tension is marred by the man in the front row eating popcorn with more noise than an industrial grader breaking up a road.

I surfaced somewhere around seven, but husbandly was sprawled in our bed, so it was off to the lounge with me. Sometimes I have trouble re-adjusting my sleep pattern. Meh. So it goes.

It's 5:10 am. There are cats. They are all thin. They sit in rows. They look alert. They do not shuffle. They watch us silently, us people hiding behind a gate. I expect Alfred Hitchcock to appear any minute. I hope he is walking some dogs.

Tonight I'm in the glory of Blood Bank, forever, amen, whatever. Whatever is, for the third year running, the most annoying word in the English language. Lucky it.

It's 5:20 am. Inside the room we watch the rain rill prettily down the windows, four girls in armchairs. By turns we feel: romantic, intellectual, consumptive or restless. It depends on how the light strikes us. Or perhaps it's the whalebone in our corsets.

Who reads this blog? Somebody must be, or I would have no stats (unless Google really is mucked up), but who are you? Not that I'm complaining, it's much nicer to have an audience rather than shooting these missives into the ether. But the country stats are weird (I'm geographically limited - I don't have many overseas friends). Please email me, go on, you know you want to....

It's 5:30 am. My alarm has gone off; the power is out and it is pitch dark. I have barked my shins on very piece of furniture in the house. I am trying to get to my phone, because the alarm is going off for a minute every five. It is annoying, but it will do as a torch. As I finally reach it (face down, I'm navigating by sound, not light), the alarm cuts off and out of the speaker comes James Earl Jones' voice reciting "The Raven". My hand stops, a foot, two feet - how can I tell? - above it. Well I'm not picking it up now. I've just stepped into a horror movie.

The sun is coming up. The mornings always look grey here. Our ground-floor windows face another five-storey building, and south, and haven't been cleaned in a very long while. Will you sleep better tonight, knowing that? You probably will. Unless your fevered brain is tortured trying to imagine finely-gritted windows imparting a grey tinge to the morning sky. Imparting. Tinge. Dig it.

It's 5:50 am in the airport and four security guards are running away from the terminal. They pelt across the tarmac as though the proverbial hounds have been released. Big Matty just took his shoes off at the check-in desk and the smell is terrific.

Is facebook a bad idea if friends read your entries, but never post any of their own? I had a friend comment (verbally, with mouths and everything) on something I'd posted, and then a guilty moment, because I thought I hadn't read my feed properly. I hadn't seen anything from my friend for, like, you know, ever. But when I got home, I hadn't missed any posts. So I wonder, is it a bit like watching someone through a window, to see if you can get a glimpse of them in their undies? Or picking their nose? (I suppose that depends on the friend). I don't really worry about twitter, so colour me contradictory on concerns.

It's 6:05 am. A man lurks in a rhododendron bush just outside a door. As people walk out he intones "You'll be baaack" in a deep voice. As they enter he squeaks.

In five minutes time I will get up and shut down machines. Then I'll start them back up again. It sounds rather futile, doesn't it? Then I'll put things away. Or not, because probably the phone will ring. And I will answer it. And I will have to do something because of the person who has rung me. I want a big red button in this lab. An emergency stop like we have at TAFE. I never cared about the big stop buttons when I was at TAFE, but now I don't have one, I'd like one. I'd like to hit the emergency stop button because it is all big and red and funky. But of course, I'd then have to explain why I hit it (because we have to call in an electrician to start everything up again), and I don't think a goofy grin and an "I felt like it, because the button is big and red and funky" would cover me.

It's 6:20 am. Heavens, is that the time?

It's time for me to stop fooling around in bits and pieces and start fooling around in earnest. (Not Ernest, I don't know where he's been aside from the squeaking as I came in to work tonight). Take care of yourselves, all ten peoples.

Ah! The Clock is Always Slow; It is Later Than You Think.

It’s New Year’s Day! Happy New Year! For some reason small lad is swanning around rugged up like the middle of winter – this summer is not so much a summer as slightly warm with daylight saving. Disappointing.

Today I’m fighting the battle of the gorge after the champagne and amounts of nibble food partaken of last night (the heartburn today is teeeee-riffic!). One of my ears is a bit spinny as well, so I’d better not lean down too fast or I’ll topple over like a Terry Gilliam animation in Monty Python.

After my last entry I had some lovely silence in my head, where I wasn’t telling myself anything. Nothing. Zip. Tranquillity. It was a nice place to be in, but the world will rush in, as it does, so that lasted about a month. Then it was a case of telling myself far too much and beating myself up rather a lot. Sigh.

It would be nice to give my brain a holiday, especially the parts monitoring just how badly I’m screwing something up. It gets tiresome.

Since I’m now a recluse (I’m thinking of getting a membership badge) big groups of people freak me out a little. So Christmas shopping was approached with a contradictory mix of “eek!” and “grrarr!”, but it all worked out in the end. I must be doing something right, because I got asked in shops where “x” might be as if I was staff and everything.

There was a Christmas event I didn’t attend, which made some waves of an interesting stripe. One of the guests opined that I hadn’t shown up because of her. Since we're all friends there, way to put people on the spot. Way. Go you. (Actually she asked if, not opined that, but I wanted to use "opined" in a sentence. Opined. Dig it.)

Guesty then went on to say that nothing was her fault; it was the fault of someone else (I’m going to call that one Else).

Else, Guesty and I worked together in my old job. Else was having rather large issues at the time – bad divorce, almost no visitation, previous breakdown under her belt – and having trouble with the job. Since I’m big and mean and tough I report it. Cue about eight months later, I’m frustrated beyond belief and I blow up. Else tells me I should “take it up with management”*, to which I reply that I have…big mistake. For the next year after this I have Guesty and another, let me call her Quitty**, telling me how I don’t understand how bad it all is, I’m unhelpful, blah blah blah. And blah. It takes me a while to figure out just how much is being said behind my back, because prior to this Guesty and I, at least, seemed to have been pretty close friends***.

So Else is using me as a scapegoat. That was no surprise really; working with her was always a foray into being questioned over everything I did. Mostly I flicked it off (to which Else would be saying, “really?” “are you sure?” ad infinitum – so you either flick it off or become a mass of neuroses – and I have enough neuroses). Even at its worst though, I felt pretty sorry for Else – because she couldn’t seem to take any responsibility. In the finish, to make the long story short, she leaves for greener pastures. Guesty and I have a conversation about the things Guesty has said over the last twelve months or so – to which she replies “I never said that. If I’ve ever given you that impression, I am very sorry – you’ve always been…” blah blah, I can’t go on with it, I really might vomit. That was the last lie I was willing to listen to. (Yeah baby, there were more, yeah baby yeah). I haven’t been in touch since.

*If there’s one phrase used by the barely competent I can’t stand, it’s “take it up with management”. As if that’s got anything to do with the discussion: yes, congratulations, you’ve said the threatening thing so now I’ll back down, soooo not, you’ve just effed up good and proper and I have to fix your mess. Grrrraaarrr I want to smash.

**”Quitty” because during all of this she made a point of telling me I should quit my job because a) the system had screwed me (different pay grade by qualification – I was in the lower grade with the higher qualification) and b) I would never get anywhere here. On separate occasions. Strangely, because professionally I’d been part of something really big and good and quite successful and I’d gotten into the higher grade, just before this little shit nugget was dropped.

***I suspect that the pleasantries in the middle of the backstabbing had to do with husbandly and his amazing fix-it prowess, but maybe I’m far too cynical for my own good.

Anyway, sheesh, even having left stuff out it’s a bloody long spiel. I wasn’t perfect in here either; temper, temper, I’ve got a temper, but never mind all that. This distance on I still feel pretty sorry for Else: I don’t think she’s capable of better, which means she’ll constantly have enemies and nothing will ever be her fault. On the other hand, I have nothing but contempt for Guesty and Quitty – friends of Else or not, it was all pretty crap.

That contempt hit a new low after the event I didn’t attend. Guesty was trying to blame Else for showing up at my farewell*. Some friend; blame the incapable one for something you did. I know some of that is unfair – Guesty likes a bit of drama and didn’t (doesn’t?) always think of ramifications, but tough noogies, she made me miserable – Guesty. Not Else, credit where credit’s due.

*Else showed up. I knnoooooww!. For pure gall, I stand in admiration.

I’ve also had a few events to go to where other attendees looked rather unhappy I was there. In one case it was assumed (why?) I wasn’t showing up at all and the dirty look I got will keep me going for a few months. Snort. Maybe I should stick with the recluse thing...except I'd miss out on:

1.Driving behind a car with the number plate MUM-291. Is there a MUM-666 out there? Is her other name Rosemary? Or has the Devil gone for a daughter (who has since reproduced)?

2. Fruit pots, brought to me by Woollies, awesome last minute snack when I've been lazy in the food-to-take-to-work department.

3. A rather loud phone conversation where a lady (?) was telling her last date that she thought he (or she) hadn't been on many dates. She moved away before I could hear any more. She had nice legs, just to enter into the reportage.

4. The Harry Potter Exhibition. Awesome. I want the clothes.

5. They make CC's corn chips with guarana now. Why, oh why?

6. Sitting on a train going past people's backyards: one has a pool with no ladder, and two doors down is a pool ladder with no pool. A feud in progress or a coincidence?

7. Watching a Mum train her child (over a period of years) to wait for the toast instead of trying new foods. Just give the kid the damn toast. Or not. Don't hold off for hours and then give in; the kid will just keep doing the same thing, and while parent-etiquette prevents eye-rolls, said rolls are happening, believe me.

I finished reading Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy (just to keep some narrative in this overly-spaced-apart thing) and I love that book. Hilarious, well paced and full of little nuggets to give one to thought*.

"The ultimate consequence of denying reality is always failure. Scratch a worthless bum and you'll discover an irrational man." - Ayn Rand, the hologram. Very certain is our Ayn.

* As opposed to giving one to drink, to the earth, to be married or to the blood-brain border patrol**.

Is it bad to sidebar a sidebar?***

** Try saying that three times fast. While drunk.

*** Well it isn't a footnote. Much as I like them, i don't have the little horizontal line and smaller-print below said line.

I had my grammar corrected by Google. And Google was right (technically - I stand by my use of tense, since I was watching the movie at the time, it was in the present). How mortifying.

My shifts generally go quiet in the depths of the night (can you tell?), when little is stirring except rogue cockroaches scurrying past the tea room*. Sounds great, doesn't it? Work goes quiet, there's nothing to do, how too, too marvellous. What it really means is I'm struggling to stay awake. To the extent where I think: "Hmm, I feel a bit sleepy eyes, oh my head's going down (a submarine klaxon sounds) 'we're going down, Captain!' head going for bench, what bench, that bench, clunk." and out like a light. I surface when the chute system goes (I'm sitting right next to it) or if the phone rings. Bleary-eyed and probably puffy, I'll get up and work or speak on the phone. It must be hilarious to watch, from passed out to "HELLO, Blood Bank! Lateonenite** speaking!" I've probably alarmed a few people that way.

*I've only seen one in the whole year-and-a-bit I've been here, but allow me the poetic license, okay?

**of course I don't say Lateonenite, but perhaps I should. My name gets mangled into Stacey, Tracey, Therese, Vanessa, and on several memorable occasions, Elizabeth. Or I could give up and call myself Barry.

So this is Barry, signing off – I’ll try on the next entry to talk less about myself.

I Have Stood Still and Stopped the Sound of Feet

I have a notebook in my lap, torch in one hand and my pen in my teeth whenever I have to clap. I sit in a darkened high school auditorium, with husbandly twiddling his thumbs next to me. We sit in the mosh pit, though I doubt it ever gets used as such.

On stage, years three-four-five-six are performing in the annual school musical and small babies are crying throughout the audience. The lighting cues are being missed, and the kids are bravely carrying on, singing their hearts out and barely forgetting their lines. The microphones the leads are using are screeching occasionally and still an improvement on the matinee last week. Unfortunately the bitchy lead (who must be wearing the latest and greatest brands, and pity the poor fools who aren't - to wit, the leads) has no microphone, so we're all missing some dramatic tension on that one.

The younger grades were on at the beginning and will come on for the big finish ("Up In Lights", "Can't Stop the Music" and some tripe called "Pots and Pans"). At the moment they're in the balcony above us all and the volume from up there is getting louder at every cheer and clap. I'd like to think they're really enjoying the show but chances are it is the influx of sugar at intermission from the cupcake stall.

Small lad is cross with me because I wouldn't let him get a cupcake - the line was out the door - and then he was cross because he wanted to go home and I wouldn't let him do that either. I am a mean mother.

The mum-and-brood who were sitting next to us in the first half have run away. I hope it had nothing to do with the juvenile note passing going on between husbandly and myself. Or rather, from me to him. As he twiddled his thumbs. Seriously, he does that.

In front of us is a lovely little girl who might be three. I seem to have made a friend. So far she has told me her whole family's names and now we're on to the plot of the Lion King. Now she's showing me some very nifty dance moves.

The action of the play is winding up on stage. Dad of the bitchy lead (who I'm pretty sure played a similar role last year) has just come out on stage and read her the riot act, including the priceless gem of "My daughter, a snob" while he hangs his head. I can't help but think that he's come to his parenting late since he's mentioned several times before this as buying her anything she wants.

Oh, the small kids are being moved back onto the stage and my friend in front of me is showing me the splits, some nifty hand movements and just asked me to spot her while she climbs on the chair. Glad to, keed.

Small lad is on stage now and has his tense face on, oh dear. It turns out later that he is very tired, but right now I'm trying to will happy thoughts at him.

I have more, but in reality I type in the fluorescent lights of the lab and I have things to do: thrills (well, blood) galore and Monty Python playing in the background. He likes traffic lights.

Frog Takes On Lawnmower

I have an urge to run and hide this morning. I have lovely coffee-spill decoration drops down the front of my shirt. It might have been better if I'd kept to my old bad habits of wearing a lab gown everywhere, but no, I try to stay gown free on the eating and the drinking. I try to stay gown-free most of the night anyway, because the petticoats just get in the way and pants are just so practical.

I blame the shirt. It's one that has mysterious stains. (Food-related mysterious stains, not- oh never mind). I wash and scrub, until my washing machine starts chugging, iron the shirt and fail to notice the mark right between the boobies. I'm hardly likely to scrub until my fingers bleed, I don't have a washboard and I'm too big a girl for that sort of thing.

Despite appearances to the contrary, I haven't been at the alcohol swabs, unless someone wants to make me an offer.

Yesterday morning (which is still this morning to me, welcome to the disorientation of twelve-hour night shifts) I took forty minutes longer to get home than I should have. Because to wanted to...SING! So I did. Forty minutes of singing at the top of my lungs, with a wind down listening to Vivaldi. Great way to relax. Tell your friends.

Unfortunately tonight/{this} morning my voice is heading towards crackville (not Crackville, in California; only drug addicts go there). I may have the small lad's lurgy, but before the hypochondria sets in, I'll assume it's overdoing the singing.

I have the attention span of an ADD squirrel. Or a dog distracted by a squirrel while trying to get it to fetch the stick, boy, go on! It's a problem and not one to explore at four in the morning, unless I really have been at the alcohol swabs (or much more likely alcoholic facsimile from a pretty glass bottle in a special shot glass); small bananas compared to solving all of the world's problems (this should only ever be undertaken while mellow and under the influence). Two o'clock is the best time really, particularly if beer has been consumed, but let's make do.

Or we could all be kind to each other, all the time, or most thereof, but apparently not.

Oh, terrific mood, thy name is me. I had a phone call earlier, the kind where I hung up the phone and said, "And when you've finished being unpleasant, perhaps we could get on with it." Because everyone else "just does it" (no they don't), and I wouldn't. Blood Bank! Mad with power! Arbitrary rules just to shit you! Yes, you in particular! Patient safety doesn't enter into it!

So much for leaving work at work. No, wait, I am at work, so that's all right.

SQUIRREL!

As much as I like the movie Up!, the dead squirrel joke isn't much chop for very literal little people (like alliteration? Me too!). "It is funny because the squirrel is dead." and it is, for the grownups; mystifying for littlies.

For anyone who hasn't seen the movie, skip the squirrel, dog and random exclamations. If you want.

If you don't, go watch it. It's a great movie though strangley not as beautiful as Wall-E. Back to Up!, the only part that puzzles me is the bad guy. In the commentary it was said that the writers tried not to make the bad guy intrinsically evil. The odd part is the bad guy takes the prize in the Pixar universe for "Most Evil (and Believable) Villain". He's adult, ugly and twisted, and creation of talking dogs (!!!) notwithstanding, one of the most reprehensible characters in a kid's movie.

The other bone I have to pick with Up!, and since I've started I may as well, is the talking dogs. Talking dogs! Really! I want one! I want all of the dogs I have ever owned to be talking dogs! Every dog person who saw the movie (especially the lines "Can we keep him?" "No." "But he's a TALKING DOG!!" and the very well-animated Kevin's body language on the "TALKING DOG!!") wants one! Sometimes when I'm not thinking about anything, I think about how much I want a talking dog! Ever since watching this movie! Do something about that, would you?

I wish I were a rich man, ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum, all day long I'd sit on my bum, if I were a wealthy man.

Then again, I'm not sure I want to commit to the sex change.

Today is my birthday. Thank you for all the good wishes. I have no plans to do anything. Other than the ironing, I'm catching up. Finally I have myself slightly organised, while outside my windows zombies smear icky things and mumble about brains. They don't want mine, apparently it induces fits. I'll be safe come the end of the world then.

I meant to be serious there, not quite sure what happened. Just think, you too could be this mental...just...errr...maybe not. I was going to blame something, but it's much more fun to assume I'm a nutbag. Better than being a peanut (as in size of brain equals, for those who don't geddit, geddit?).

Lawnmowers: one. Frogs: a blood-smeared and speckled zero.

Obliging Bilge

I've been sucked in. The Doctor Who Bonanza proceeds apace, and tonight instead of quietly reading or having a bath, there I was, re-watching The Stolen Earth and Journey's End.

It's a way to avoid the State of the World Today. Whose justice? And that's all I'm going to say.

I'm still working my way through mimi smartypants, I'm slow, but I get there. In the End.

Found: a pair of glasses lost for eight years. Next time something goes missing, I'm looking on top of the buffet and hutch. How they got up there eight years ago...I can take a guess. I think husbandly put them up there so they'd be "safe". Chances are he was changing the light, same as this time; he just forgot. Oh well. My old prescription was crappy anyway. I must have been drugged when I went in for them. The strength is about twice that of the glasses I currently wear. If I feel like getting drunk, but can't for whatever reason, I'm pulling out the old glasses and watching the world go lurching by. I may throw up, but the head spins might be worth it.

Probably not, but it seems a working theory until I'm tired or crazy enough to try it.

Now I'm off my shifts for a while I've spent a leisurely couple of days sleeping. Although yesterday morning I hauled myself up to go to an antibody breakfast club meeting. For non-blood bankers, that is an amazing collection of nouns in the one spot.

On my way out yesterday morning I got stared down by Fluffy the cat from across the road. For all her one eye-ness, my cat is the doyenne of the cat milieu around here - nearly every cat in the street comes to visit*. It couldn't be because she leaves food if she doesn't like it - meaning it isn't chicken breast or fillet steak. Fluffy (probably not her real name) is something of a madam, cat bell notwithstanding. After staring me down (not that I was staring back, I can cope with not dominating a cat, thanks), I got the flick of the (fluffy) tail and a view of her arse. Lovely. The anus as an expression of disdain.

*including the cat we managed to catch in our possum trap. After Cass, the mad prophetess no-one listens to (yes, that's our cat), lost her eye, we were bound and determined to catch the booger who attacked her. Cue patient baiting of possum trap and capture of one beautiful black cat. When it comes right down to it, though, neither one of us can bring ourselves to either a) wring it's neck (and husbandly could, he used to kill rabbits for the pot) or b) take it to a vet to be necked. Dang. We decide to let it go, but a long way from us. Irresponsible? You bet, let us add to the feral cat problem.

Husbandly takes the cat on a drive and lets it go in a park. As soon as he opens the cage, out shoots Blacky, only to pause twenty feet away. The thought processes were obvious - no, wait, I don't know where I am - and the Blackster looks back at husbandly, looks relieved - hey, I know him! - and starts running back toward the car. Then pauses - hang on, he's the one who put me in a cage - and that was the last we saw of Blacky.

Before the hate mail starts (because anyone who knows cats knows this one was obviously an owned cat and not the bastard tom who attacked our Cass), Blackster showed up about six weeks later, calmly sitting on our verandah; having just eaten Cass' dinner and relaxing before the off.

Last night I wound up flicking from one lot of bad tv to the next - and couldn't be arsed getting up to either put on a DVD or plug the iPad in. I caught Mary J. Bilge Blige live at Abbey Road and somewhere before that the complete and total bilge that is the hysterical Private Practice. Oh the humanity. (Somebody get me a bucket).

Having said that, I found it hard to tear my eyes away - the horror, the horror - like watching a crash in slow motion.

The sonic screwdriver (season 5 version) has arrived for the small lad's birthday and it is AWESOME!! I want one! I want to take it to work and point It at alarms when they go off! Because that oxygen depletion alarm is coming off the wall if it keeps up, I'm warning you, inanimate collection of circuits designed to keep us all breathing! This is your last chance! I love rational anger, don't you?

The Yellow Pages ad with the singing bobble-headed man creeps me out. I'd link it but the internet doesn't have everything.

Teacher's Strikes and the Fidgets Have a Turn

This morning, for two hours, we have a teacher's strike. To protest the lack of special education places. The funny thing is, I don't recall being told anything about this prior to the strike being announced.

I should say, while I'm in a union, I have no real patience with teacher's strikes. The people to suffer are the students. It's a problem for me right now, as I have a shift tonight, so instead of being able to just go off to sleep today and hope for an unbroken three or four hours, I'm going to be lucky to get two hours instead, but that's neither here nor there in my mind. I could have dropped my son off to watch movies in the library.

Is the thinking that every time a strike gets called, oodles of upset parents contact the Department of Education and thus the problem is solved? I'm not inclined. If anything, I'm inclined to contact the teacher's federation and object to the holding to ransom of children and their education without appropriate notice to parents.

Want me to write a letter to the Department? Ask me. Lay out your case. I'm lucky enough that I'm not affected by this particular issue - but what's fair and right will never go out of fashion. If there are deficits in the education system (no doubt really, but I'm laying out my case), then involve all of the stakeholders. That includes me, my husband and my son. Talk! Find ways.

Going out on strike should only ever be a last resort.

Well, having got that little controversy off my chest, nothing much else to report.

From my keyboard to no-one's ears.

Laughing Children and Adults (Acting Like Adults)

Today sees me basking in the vroom vroom noises and general hilarity of the two boys from a couple of houses away playing on their bikes. It's nice to hear kids playing.

Since I live in a quite cul-de-sac, all of the kids in the neighbourhood tend to ride their bikes and whatnot up on the road. Say that to anyone who has never seen our particular slice of nicety and they look at you like you've stepped out of a file from DOCS.

Perhaps I talk too much, to the wrong people.

Tonight I go off once again to work a shift and generally be a responsible member of society. I spent most of the weekend doing the same thing, although the responsible member of society part of it is sarcasm. It's a job.

Since that's about all I have to say for today....

Vroom vroom!