Time to Quit

I am not good at doing what I am not good at. I have always been the same. I am happy to have a go at new stuff, but if I don't cotton on right away, then I will give it a miss. Perhaps it has to do with a fear of public humiliation?

When I was but a wee slip of a girl, I wanted to learn to play squash. I'd sneak off for private lessons on deserted Sunday afternoons, so no-one could see and when I thought I had a handle on the game, I joined a competition team. Sure I buggered up sometimes, sometimes more than sometimes, but mostly I didn't do too badly.

I have somewhat famously thrown a whole meal at a wall in my own kitchen because I buggered it up after cooking all afternoon, but I learnt a lesson and now my pies are legendary - just ask Stevie, but my attempt at making Gozleme was such a disaster that I decided that a repeat performance was never gonna play.

I reckon you just know after one or two shots at something if you are gonna get the hang of it.

And the only way I could possible continue to go at something where failure was the only common denominator would be if I was getting paid huge chunks of wonga, and seriously maybe not even then, because you know - INTEGRITY,  and I know my ego would not allow me to front to work everyday and FAIL.

Surely I am not alone in this?

Fancy fronting to work and being told to mix up a cake batter and then throw it away, never getting the chance to pop it in the oven and actually bake the cake?

How about being told to tot up a column of figures and then forget the total never mind manipulating the figures in some game of beat the tax man scheme?

Or maybe you'd like to slice into someone's guts and stand around looking then just sew 'em back up? Now that sounds like a cancer diagnosis doesn't it? Shit I am very glad that is NOT my job. I reckon Doctors who do this must drink heavily or down happy pills or go for fun runs twice a day.

And how would any normal person manage being told to dig a hole, have a look, then fill it in again and then be told to come back tomorrow to do exactly the same thing again?

How many times do you reckon you would do this before the straw broke the camel?

If you are getting paid and need to make rent and have children to feed I guess you can suck it up for quite a while, weeks maybe? But surely unless you are some sort gormless fool who can't find their arse with both hands and a torch, or a masochist who enjoys feeling completely inept and impotent, or you are some vile subversive creature looking to bring down a whole country by exploiting Work Place Agreements, or you are just the laziest useless piece of shit waste of air standing incredulous that you even have a job, well then surely you'd SAY something, DO something, ANYTHING to get the job done.

The Main Roads Department has been responsible for digging up our suburban corner more than 23 times. Yeh there are the usual services which need to be tickled for the road works - power, communications, water, gas, but still I wondered if there had been some huge problem which had slowed the work. Perhaps the Chinese are digging from the other side and want to send in Whale ships to help Japan - ridiculous I know I am just being silly.

I asked The District Director, who has gone missing, only to be replaced by an Acting fella, who is too lazy or incompetent to write his own emails so has hand-balled that job off to someone else with no title, yeh I asked what problems they had faced on this corner. Surely there must be a massive complication, an intriguing puzzle never before seen or solved, but no the no title, fill in for the fill in, said,
'There have been no delays or additional requirements....When dealing with public utilities such as gas, water, electricity and data cables, contractors must take utmost care.....blah blah blah'

These people are being paid for 11 hour shifts and large herds of 'em have been sucking from the the public purse trough on this corner more than 23 times, and that's not because there has been any problems, it's because they are being 'careful'.

23 times - dig it up, have a look, fill it up, dig it up, have a look, fill it up, every time using a machine chucking out 100 Db in contravention of EPA guidelines. I reckon with a staff of say 15 people a shift, paying penalty rates cos of Night Works, the wage bill alone is in the range of $190,000! To dig a hole and move 4 or 5 services!  Of course if we added in the cost of the 'supervising' bosses' wages we might find ourselves throwing up into a bucket, or a hole somewhere, out of sheer incredulity. Yeh I know where there is a good one.

That's one fucking expensive hole huh? Aren't we all thrilled that this is how our tax money is spent?

And you know what? The job is still not done, so keep that abacus handy.

All Hale the Cool

Yippee to closing the door on the summer heat.

Yep it's time to dig out something a little fluffy and to snuggle up.

But it's not like we have to stuff a cupboard with supplies and hibernate for the winter. Nope. Not here at the Goldie. Here it's still thongs and shorts and walks at the beach, paddling and playing the 'Sand Game' with Dog during the day and donning a pair of less than sexy socks and a layer or two at night.

In London I had a rule that I'd wear sandals until the last holidays before winter just in an effort to extend the summer and this sometimes meant bare toes in the snow. Some people saw this as a little odd. My expectations then were different. 10 degrees C was considered positively balmy, and now I reckon 10 degrees is just a little chilly.

Sandals were finally swapped for boots and I had quite the range. Flat, low, high, cheap, stupid expensive and in about every colour, but you know what, even though I whinge about the heat here and I reminisce fondly about the long cold grey winter months, I don't fancy wearing boots anymore. I am not at all sure I'd be able to squash my feet into 'em after all these years of thongs and bare feet.

So no boots, but scarfs and wraps and little blankets over knees at night. Bloody bliss.

And loads of slow cooked dinners with scrummy sauces and loads of veg.

And closed windows to keep the bloody road works noise out.

Shorter days and pale blue skies, well except for today cos it's raining and I like the grey closed in rainy skies too.

From this vantage I cannot recall ever whining about the long cold wet winters in London, but it must have worn a bit thin, cos a number of the paintings we have hanging were chosen in a bid to eliminate the gloom.

We were driving home one Sunday with the top down and we stumbled across an art show out in the boondocks countryside somewhere and we popped in and fell for a couple of wildly bright paintings, I said to Stevie that if we hung these in the house we'd never notice the blahs of winter. So we paid for 'em and then faced the very real problem of fitting them into the back seat of the car, and then yep, you guessed it, it started to rain. I can't remember HOW we got 'em home but I'm glad we did, cos even here on the other side of the world they brighten things up.

Boredom must consume folk who live in places with no seasonal variety. 

I just don't even want to imagine it.

Poaching

Good Old Uncle Toby's Oats is the piece de resistance.

It is no secret that Sundays are bath days. This is not to say that for the rest of the week I just get about progressively more stinky from one day to the next and waft powder into my hair whilst sticking snuff shit up by nose - no I am not gonna make a comment about all those cocaine losers over the weekend. No during the week I just throw myself through the shower, which is a perfunctory task and brings very little joy - not none but not much. So on Sundays I slide into a bath, yes, sometimes for hours at a time.

Stevie has always spoiled me with all manner of bath stuff, smelly stuff that is sometimes so cloying and lovely that I can still smell it in the bathroom on Wednesday. AHHH just lovely.

I like a deep hot soak with millions of bubbles and I light a candle for extra pong. I load up with my Kindle and sometimes a glass of stuff and maybe some sweeties or some cheese. People could be forgiven for thinking that I was actually moving into the bathroom, never to return.

But recently some of the joy has been lost.

The Poison Meds are playing havoc with lots of parts of me and also of course killing off the mutants. On an ordinary day I might have 3 or 4 side effects not really worth banging on about, sometimes I have to call an ambo cos I am crying with fucking hip pain. But generally I am pretty good - Stevie might beg to differ.

But the constant thing is that my skin is a bloody desert disaster. I have been downing antihistamines since the beginning of this little adventure cos I broke out in very attractive rashes and old gal acne, and the little orange pills stop me from scratching the be-shitter out of everywhwere, and I do mean EVERYWHERE. But ultimately, there are still occasional little upsets and my skin all over has taken on that crepey crappy thin scaley look and little bits flake off into the breeze. Yeh Hansel and Gretel would have been pleased for the help, when they ran out of breadcrumbs.

So hours in a decadent chemically scented hot as Hades tub, is more than a little counter effective in treating the scale and the scratch.

Yesterday I poached in lashings of coconut oil and oatmeal.

2 heaped tablespoons of solid coconut oil - 4 I guess if it is melted, and a cup of oats stuffed into a sock held closed with a hair tie, all shoved into the bath, and in you slide. Slide is seriously what you do, so unless you want a real reason to call the Ambos cos you broke your bum bone or something else - so do be careful.

The water can't be 'Frog Jump Out' hot but it's still pretty relaxing. The candle was on and the kindle was charged and soak away I did. Not for a marathon - Stevie was surprised when I re-entered the world before my usual time, but today, I have not been scratching up a storm, so maybe a final change was necessary.

I have been slopping on the coconut oil on and off for a year, but I haven't really wanted to say goodbye to my divine Sundays with all the gorgeous potions. However it seems like it might be necessary. Bugger.

I sidled up to Stevie to give him a whiff of my new bath perfume and he said I smelt like soap. I guess that's better than stinking of stale sweat. I thought I smelt like an old fashioned bakery. Tomatoes V Tomatoes

Bastards.

This is our street corner after 21 'GOS'

The Footpath here is not as smooth as this photos implies.

They are now chucking random bits of ply wood over the holes.

This is the year of the Battle with the Bastards, and after yesterday's post about Rocky 4, I rather like the idea of being able to give these areswipes' noses a bit of a tickle.

I thought things had calmed down and rather hopefully or naively or stupidly, guessed that we might have even had a little win, but NO, TMR has started up again! Friday night at 11.45 PM - yeh that's right, at a quarter to the witching hour they parked up their fucking Vacumm Excavation truck and dug another hole in the footpath. Of course they could have done this work during the DAY and of course they could have used a person with a shovel, but why let some consideration for the health and well being of the locals get in the way of being total fucking bastards?

This followed on from, or might have been because of - depending on the degree of paranoia you permit, an email I sent last week asking what trouble or problem they were having. In an idle moment I sat and counted back in my diarised notes and found that these fuckwits have dug up the corner of my street 21 - yep TWENTY-ONE times, and still they have not finished. And 21 times is a conservative count cos I am sure I have missed recording some of the attempts when I was just too tired to lift a pen, and I was away for a while too.

So they dig it up, have a look and a little shoulder shrug, and fill it up again. By the looks of the mess they have left this time, they are not bothering too much with the filling up and if this is their effort at 'making good' the footpath, I await news of a law suit filed by an old person less fleet of foot, who has gone for a tumble.

The District Director of TMR has been replaced by another job's worth who is now Acting District Director, and the cynic in me wonders if this is just more of a ploy to hinder any honest forthright dialogue with this appalling government department. He sent back a shitful stupid response but finished off saying that this work is going to go on until late 2017. Hmmm. It was meant to be September and then that stretched to October, but that is clearly no longer the end date. Just more shit for longer! Yeh I know all government departments are all the same, but I only really have experience with this lot, unless you count the police department, which it seems is run by TMR anyway.

So the new fella sprouted the same old shit the other fella started with 5 months ago.

The merry-go-round is making me nauseous, nauseous but not surprised. Ho Hum

The Bulletin Newspaper has been following up and is now looking into the methods and the obscene waste of tax payer money, and I think they might also be having a little look see at what role the police play in this very sleazy wee dance. I am still waiting to hear if the police are going to continue to pursue the infringement notice they issued me on the first of March, for 'Walking too slowly across the road'. I guess it will depend on just how much TMR wants the $48 fine. I do wonder how long it takes to make a decision about this - perhaps as long as it takes TMR to relocate a few services in a suburban street?

Stevie is getting nervous cos if they are starting up again I might head out and get myself arrested while he is away. He hopes that if I go out there I will take Dog cos the coppers might be less keen to chuck a dog in the paddy wagon. I wonder what the procedure will be if no-one is available to take delivery of me.

I must remember to tuck a credit card up my whatsit just in case huh?

I am a slow starter.

It's a bit obscure but this is a clue about the movie watching today.

Saturdays are self indulgent quiet affairs here in the Big House. Stevie heads off to do battle with the little white ball and I please myself.

Except that today the ironing basket was hollering at me and because sometimes there is just no escaping it, I sucked it up and set up for my most loathed pass time.

The only half decent thing about ironing shit is that I can catch up on rubbish TV.

Over the last few weeks I have fallen upon a bit of Rocky action as I played the Tellie shuffle, while lounging the afternoon away on the couch, and there it was again today.

Somehow I have never seen any of these movies all the way through, so I settled in to have a look see. The clothes were all hanging and looking good, so I had my computer on my lap and was reading stuff and playing some cards, and shoveling in food and drink,  but mostly I suspended disbelief and grunted with each punch, and hid behind my hands and just so didn't enjoy all that brutality.

I can't or rather will not, watch boxing on the tellie and would just never go to a bout live cos well, just yukky no, so I am not sure what I expected really, cos god knows the possibility of a Stallone Oscar winning performance was pretty small.

But I will say that those fellas were definitely FIT. Or maybe they were enhanced? I don't now and I suppose it is all so long ago that no-one would care now anyway.

And as I rather doubt that Mr Stallone or the Mr Lundgren - Russian Giant, would have been experts at pulling their punches, some of that action really must have hurt like hell. Yeh of course the blood and guts would have been applied but it looked pretty real to me. Blood and spit flying is not pretty.

I don't know if there is a Rocky 5 or 6 or 11, but I rather think that I have seen enough. Spoiler alert! I was surprised that the first fight today finished in a funeral, but the final outcome was no surprise, so I am tempted to think that if you have seen one of these movies, you might well have seen 'em all.

Have you seen all these movies?
Would you sit through a Rocky Marathon?

When is child abuse funny?

There has been this You tube story rattling along this week about some shitful American couple who blended their families to become anything BUT the Brady Bunch. I don't even know how they did it, or more importantly WHY they did it but they set up a You Tube channel and put up videos of them abusing their blended 5 children.

Well I'll be fucked! and not just because such people do such dreadful things but because they managed to find 75000 similarly flawed fuckers to subscribe to their channel and at last reporting they were raking in $350000 a year from this disgusting little venture.

I looked at a montage vid before the details came to light, and to my untrained eye, there did not seem to be too much joking going on. Taunting and sadness and frustration and physical abuse. I willed it to stop. I was lucky cos I could turn it off. But what of the kids?

I read today the the birth mother of the 2 smallest kids has taken them back and there is an odd explanation for how she gave 'em up in the first place, but ho hum - shoes and walking a mile comes to mind. But the other 3 belong to the woman in the filming family so I guess they are stuck and as the targets of most of the abuse are now out of the house, I guess they might all be watching their backs hoping that they are not next.

And so all this is appalling, of course. But how come it went on for so long?

I don't know anything about You Tube except that occasionally there are very funny vids of monkeys throwing their own shit at grandma, and as I was not the Ma in focus, I laughed up a lung. But I reckon that there must be some content filter which edits out some stuff - naked romping with animals maybe? or overt violence maybe? or rape scenes? I fucking hope so, cos this is available to EVERYONE, yeh kids and all!

So my question, on a par with what the very fuck is wrong with those parents, is how is it that these violent degrading videos of children  are permitted to be aired on a free for all site and for such a lengthy period?

How are filters applied? I am not at all tech savvy so perhaps there is a programme which can be used to pick up this footage, or maybe the computer just cottons on to milliseconds of too much nakidity. I really don't know. But if, as I imagine, PEOPLE are in charge of the filters, then what the fuck was wrong with the people who looked at this shit and thought, ' Oh Well, it's harmless cos the parents are filming it all - must be crocodile tears from the kids, let it run.'

I would be very pleased if anyone who knows about You Tube Filtering could explain it to me.

PLEASE.

I don't understand Tattoos.

The real world has seemingly has passed me by cos it's a long weekend here in Queensland and I didn't even know it. The first I heard about it was when a friend of mine PINKY POINKER who writes a fabulous blog, www.pinkypoinker.com.au  mentioned it in relation to something else completely random and I have been back pedaling ever since.

So we went to the Spit cos there's a wonderful off leash dog zone as big and as wonderful as my lost mind.

Now I always come away from this place relaxed and calm and usually full of wonder.

Today I wondered how people just refuse to pick up their dog shit.

Oh sure very occasionally Dog will squirt out something closely resembling dirty mud water, cos the salt water she slurps up by the gallon goes right through her, and this is impossible to collect cos it disappears into the sand almost immediately. But when she drops a solid one, we are there with bags in hand.

Today there were 2 dogs galloping around and for our whole visit, we didn't see who they belonged to. The followed us up the beach and back again and stopped to play with random dogs and shit all the way. Yep little piles of Dog Dirt were left like Hanzel and Gretel's breadcrumbs, and when we left, these 2 dogs were still there unattended.

I have heard of people dropping off their kids at patrolled beaches and heading into the casino or the pub, but I am shocked at the idea that folk with dogs would be equally cavalier. Anyway it made me a little cross, cos these piles of poo give purpose to people's argument about no dogs on the beach and that is irritating. Oh Well.

And while we sat and watched the day away, I noticed people and their tattoos. Of course the beach is an excellent place for a tattoo perv.

I don't like tattoos.

I don't understand tattoos.

I am a flighty bitch and just know that I don't want to wear ANYTHING at all EVERY FUCKING DAY OF MY LIFE - Easily bored, I suppose.

And my eyesight, even with my specs is not good enough to distinguish the intricate details - surely there are details, so all too often the markings just look like dirt to me.

And then I wondered if the folk who get tattoos all up and down their legs, get 'em so they can see 'em or so everyone else can see 'em. Which way up is the right way up? And if the right way up is so everyone else can see it, what joy would there be in looking at an up-side-down something on your thigh everyday. Yeh I don't get it.

And then there are the piece meal bits with space and stuff missing and I just hope that one day the canvas will be completed, cos I don't get a bit of this here and a bit of that there. It's a bit like decorating a room and doing a bit of the wall and then the ceiling and then buying a chair and putting it next to salad bowl and a crossword puzzle. One thing at a time, and do it well I always say. I like it when a project is finished. I like drawing a line under things. I don't like half done.

Except half done would have been better than 'job done' on the bloke who was covered from arsehole to breakfast, all over his head and face and shoulders and chest, and then, well I just had to look away. Who does that to themselves?

I can sort understand someone trying to disguise and ugly scar with something pretty and I can certainly understand women who have had double mastectomies who get artistic things tattooed all over their chests, but this mutilation of your face, I just don't get it. I mean no-one is that ugly.

People gave him a very wide birth and perhaps if I was 'in the know' I might have been able to interpret the stuff all over his face, but he was just scary and that surely must have been his intention. 'Look at me! - Don't you dare fucking look at me!"

Once I had seen this fella the rest of the day's body 'art' was of very little significance.

I don't care that people get tattoos, their body and all that, but once done surely there is an expectation that people will perv, except that this bloke wanted people to look then look away. Intimidation! Seems like a permanent way of pointing a gun at the world.